The Racist Algorithm?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Anupam Chander in the Michigan Law Review (2017 Forthcoming) : “Are we on the verge of an apartheid by algorithm? Will the age of big data lead to decisions that unfairly favor one race over others, or men over women? At the dawn of the Information Age, legal scholars are sounding warnings about the ubiquity of automated algorithms that increasingly govern our lives. In his new book, The Black Box Society: The Hidden Algorithms Behind Money and Information, Frank Pasquale forcefully argues that human beings are increasingly relying on computerized algorithms that make decisions about what information we receive, how much we can borrow, where we go for dinner, or even whom we date. Pasquale’s central claim is that these algorithms will mask invidious discrimination, undermining democracy and worsening inequality. In this review, I rebut this prominent claim. I argue that any fair assessment of algorithms must be made against their alternative. Algorithms are certainly obscure and mysterious, but often no more so than the committees or individuals they replace. The ultimate black box is the human mind. Relying on contemporary theories of unconscious discrimination, I show that the consciously racist or sexist algorithm is less likely than the consciously or unconsciously racist or sexist human decision-maker it replaces. The principal problem of algorithmic discrimination lies elsewhere, in a process I label viral discrimination: algorithms trained or operated on a world pervaded by discriminatory effects are likely to reproduce that discrimination.

I argue that the solution to this problem lies in a kind of algorithmic affirmative action. This would require training algorithms on data that includes diverse communities and continually assessing the results for disparate impacts. Instead of insisting on race or gender neutrality and blindness, this would require decision-makers to approach algorithmic design and assessment in a race and gender conscious manner….(More)“

Transforming governance: how can technology help reshape democracy?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Research Briefing by Matt Leighninger: “Around the world, people are asking how we can make democracy work in new and better ways. We are frustrated by political systems in which voting is the only legitimate political act, concerned that many republics don’t have the strength or appeal to withstand authoritarian figures, and disillusioned by the inability of many countries to address the fundamental challenges of health, education and economic development.

We can no longer assume that the countries of the global North have ‘advanced’ democracies, and that the nations of the global South simply need to catch up. Citizens of these older democracies have increasingly lost faith in their political institutions; Northerners cherish their human rights and free elections, but are clearly looking for something more. Meanwhile, in the global South, new regimes based on a similar formula of rights and elections have proven fragile and difficult to sustain. And in Brazil, India and other Southern countries, participatory budgeting and other valuable democratic innovations have emerged. The stage is set for a more equitable, global conversation about what we mean by democracy.

How can we adjust our democratic formulas so that they are more sustainable, powerful, fulfilling – and, well, democratic? Some of the parts of this equation may come from the development of online tools and platforms that help people to engage with their governments, with organisations and institutions, and with each other. Often referred to collectively as ‘civic technology’ or ‘civic tech’, these tools can help us map public problems, help citizens generate solutions, gather input for government, coordinate volunteer efforts, and help neighbours remain connected. If we want to create democracies in which citizens have meaningful roles in shaping public decisions and solving public problems, we should be asking a number of questions about civic tech, including:

  • How can online tools best support new forms of democracy?
  • What are the examples of how this has happened?
  • What are some variables to consider in comparing these examples?
  • How can we learn from each other as we move forward?

This background note has been developed to help democratic innovators explore these questions and examine how their work can provide answers….(More)”

Democracy in Decline: Rebuilding its Future

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Philip Kotler: “An examination by the ‘father of modern marketing’ into how well  a long cherished product (democracy) is satisfying the needs of its consumers (citizens), bringing conversation and solutions on how we can all do our bit to bring about positive change.

At a time where voting systems are flawed, fewer vote, major corporations fund campaigns and political parties battle it out, democracies are being seriously challenged and with that the prospects of a better world for all.

Philip Kotler identifies 14 shortcomings of today’s democracy and proposes potential remedies whilst encouraging readers to join the conversation, exercise their free speech and get on top of the issues that affect their lives regardless of nationality or political persuasion.

An accompanying website (www.democracyindecline.com) invites those interested to help find and publish thoughtful articles that aid our understanding of what is happening and what can be done to improve democracies around the world….(More)”

The Spanish Town That Runs on Twitter

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Mark Scott at the New York Times: “…For the town’s residents, more than half of whom have Twitter accounts, their main way to communicate with local government officials is now the social network. Need to see the local doctor? Send a quick Twitter message to book an appointment. See something suspicious? Let Jun’s policeman know with a tweet.

People in Jun can still use traditional methods, like completing forms at the town hall, to obtain public services. But Mr. Rodríguez Salas said that by running most of Jun’s communications through Twitter, he not only has shaved on average 13 percent, or around $380,000, from the local budget each year since 2011, but he also has created a digital democracy where residents interact online almost daily with town officials.

“Everyone can speak to everyone else, whenever they want,” said Mr.Rodríguez Salas in his office surrounded by Twitter paraphernalia,while sporting a wristband emblazoned with #LoveTwitter. “We are onTwitter because that’s where the people are.”…

By incorporating Twitter into every aspect of daily life — even the localschool’s lunch menu is sent out through social media — this Spanishtown has become a test bed for how cities may eventually use socialnetworks to offer public services….

Using Twitter has also reduced the need for some jobs. Jun cut its police force by three-quarters, to just one officer, soon after turning to Twitter as its main form of communication when residents began tweeting potential problems directly to the mayor.

“We don’t have one police officer,” Mr. Rodríguez Salas said. “We have 3,500.”

For Justo Ontiveros, Jun’s remaining police officer, those benefits are up close and personal. He now receives up to 20, mostly private, messages from locals daily with concerns ranging from advice on filling out forms to reporting crimes like domestic abuse and speeding.

Mr. Ontiveros said his daily Twitter interactions have given him both greater visibility within the community and a higher level of personal satisfaction, as neighbors now regularly stop him in the street to discuss things that he has posted on Twitter.

“It gives people more power to come and talk to me about their problems,” said Mr. Ontiveros, whose department Twitter account has more than 3,500 followers.

Still, Jun’s reliance on Twitter has not been universally embraced….(More)”

Citizen Lobbying: How Your Skills Can Fix Democracy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

TEDxBrussels Presentation: “The more society professionalises, the less is taking advantage if its own skills. Indeed, each of us has much more to give to society than what our job descriptions allow us to. How to then mobilize our skills for the greater good? Alberto Alemanno, an engaged academic and civic advocate, argues that besides voting and running for office there is also a third, less known – yet more promising -, way to make society progress: lobbying. Lobbying is no longer a prerogative of well-funded groups with huge memberships and countless political connections. This talk offers you a guide on how to become an effective citizen lobbyist in your daily life by tapping into your own talents, skills and experience….(More)” See also http://www.thegoodlobby.eu/

 

Digital Keywords: A Vocabulary of Information Society and Culture

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Benjamin Peters: “In the age of search, keywords increasingly organize research, teaching, and even thought itself. Inspired by Raymond Williams’s 1976 classic Keywords, the timely collection Digital Keywords gathers pointed, provocative short essays on more than two dozen keywords by leading and rising digital media scholars from the areas of anthropology, digital humanities, history, political science, philosophy, religious studies, rhetoric, science and technology studies, and sociology. Digital Keywords examines and critiques the rich lexicon animating the emerging field of digital studies.

This collection broadens our understanding of how we talk about the modern world, particularly of the vocabulary at work in information technologies. Contributors scrutinize each keyword independently: for example, the recent pairing of digital and analog is separated, while classic terms such as community, culture, event, memory, and democracy are treated in light of their historical and intellectual importance. Metaphors of the cloud in cloud computing and the mirror in data mirroring combine with recent and radical uses of terms such as information, sharing, gaming, algorithm, and internet to reveal previously hidden insights into contemporary life. Bookended by a critical introduction and a list of over two hundred other digital keywords, these essays provide concise, compelling arguments about our current mediated condition.

Digital Keywords delves into what language does in today’s information revolution and why it matters…(More)”.

The Perils of Experimentation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Michael A. Livermore: “More than eighty years after Justice Brandeis coined the phrase “laboratories of democracy,” the concept of policy experimentation retains its currency as a leading justification for decentralized governance. This Article examines the downsides of experimentation, and in particular the potential for decentralization to lead to the production of information that exacerbates public choice failures. Standard accounts of experimentation and policy learning focus on information concerning the social welfare effects of alternative policies. But learning can also occur along a political dimension as information about ideological preferences, campaign techniques, and electoral incentives is revealed. Both types of information can be put to use in the policy arena by a host of individual and institutional actors that have a wide range of motives, from public-spirited concern for the general welfare to a desire to maximize personal financial returns. In this complex environment, there is no guarantee that the information that is generated by experimentation will lead to social benefits. This Article applies this insight to prior models of federalism developed in the legal and political science literature to show that decentralization can lead to the over-production of socially harmful information. As a consequence, policy makers undertaking a decentralization calculation should seek a level of decentralization that best balances the costs and benefits of information production. To illustrate the legal and policy implications of the arguments developed here, this Article examines two contemporary environmental rulemakings of substantial political, legal, and economic significance: a rule to define the jurisdictional reach of the Clean Water Act; and a rule to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity generating sector….(More)”.

 

Is civic technology the killer app for democracy?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

 at TechCrunch: “Smartphone apps have improved convenience for public transportation in many urban centers. In Washington, DC, riders can download apps to help them figure out where to go, when to show up and how long to wait for a bus or train. However, the problem with public transport in DC is not the lack of modern, helpful and timely information. The problem is that the Metro subway system is onfire. 

Critical infrastructure refers to the vital systems that connect us. Like the water catastrophe in Flint, Michigan and our crumbling roads, bridges and airports, the Metro system in DC is experiencing a systems failure. The Metro’s problems arise from typical public challenges like  poor management and deferred maintenance.

Upgrades of physical infrastructure are not easy and nimble like a software patch or an agile design process. They are slow, expensive and subject to deliberation and scrutiny. In other words, they are the fundamental substance of democratic decision-making: big decisions with long-term implications that require thoughtful strategy, significant investment, political leadership and public buy-in.

A killer app is an application you love so much you buy into a whole new way of doing things. Email and social media are good examples of killer apps. The killer app for Metro would have to get political leaders to look beyond their narrow, short-term interests and be willing to invest in modern public transportation for our national capital region.

The same is true for fixing our critical infrastructure throughout the nation. The killer apps for the systems on which we rely daily won’t be technical, they will be human. It will be Americans working together to a build a technology-enabled resilient democracy —one that is inclusive, responsive and successful in the Information Age.

In 2007, the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi river. During his presidential bid, Senator John McCain used this event as an example of the failure of our leaders to make trade-offs for common national purpose. Case in point, an extravagantly expensive congressionally funded Alaskan “bridge to nowhere” that served just a handful of people on an island. But how many apps to nowhere are we building?.

In DC, commuters who can afford alternatives will leave Metro. They’ll walk, drive, ordera car service or locate a bikeshare. The people who suffer from the public service risk and imbalance of the current Metro system are those who have no choice.

So here’s the challenge: Modern technology needs to create an inclusive society. Our current technical approach too often means that we’re prioritizing progress or profit for the few over the many. This pattern defeats the purpose of both the technology revolution and American democracy. Government and infrastructure are supposed to serve everyone, but technology thus far has made it so that public failures affect some Americans more than others. …

For democracy to succeed in the Information Age, we’ll need some new rules of engagement with technology. The White House recently released its third report on data and its implications for society. The 2016 report pays special attention to the ethics of machine automation and algorithms. The authors stress the importance of ethical analytics and propose the principle of “equal opportunity by design.” It’s an excellent point of departure as we recalibrate old systems and build new bridges to a more resilient, inclusive and prosperous nation….(more)”

These Online Platforms Make Direct Democracy Possible

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Tom Ladendorf in InTheseTimes: “….Around the world, organizations from political parties to cooperatives are experimenting with new modes of direct democracy made possible by the internet.

“The world has gone through extraordinary technological innovation,” says Agustín Frizzera of Argentina’s Net Party. “But governments and political institutions haven’t innovated enough.”

The founders of the four-year-old party have also built an online platform, DemocracyOS, that lets users discuss and vote on proposals being considered by their legislators.

Anyone can adopt the technology, but the Net Party uses it to let Buenos Aires residents debate City Council measures. A 2013 thread, for example, concerned a plan to require bars and restaurants to make bathrooms free and open to the public.

“I recognize the need for freely available facilities, but it is the state who should be offering this service,” reads the top comment, voted most helpful by users. Others argued that private bathrooms open the door to discrimination. Ultimately, 56.9 percent of participants supported the proposal, while 35.3 percent voted against and 7.8 percent abstained….

A U.S. company called PlaceAVote, launched in 2014, takes what it calls a more pragmatic approach. According to cofounder Job Melton, PlaceAVote’s goal is to “work within the system we have now and fix it from the inside out” instead of attempting the unlikely feat of building a third U.S. party.

Like the Net Party and its brethren, PlaceAVote offers an online tool that lets voters participate in decision making. Right now, the technology is in public beta at PlaceAVote.com, allowing users nationwide to weigh in on legislation before Congress….

But digital democracy has applications that extend beyond electoral politics. A wide range of groups are using web-based decision-making tools internally. The Mexican government, for example, has used DemocracyOS to gather citizen feedback on a data-protection law, and Brazilian civil society organizations are using it to encourage engagement with federal and municipal policy-making.

Another direct-democracy tool in wide use is Loomio, developed by a cooperative in New Zealand. Ben Knight, one of Loomio’s cofounders, sums up his experience with Occupy as one of “seeing massive potential of collective decision making, and then realizing how difficult it could be in person.” After failing to find an online tool to facilitate the process, the Loomio team created a platform that enables online discussion with a personal element: Votes are by name and voters can choose to “disagree” with or even “block” proposals. Provo, Utah, uses Loomio for public consultation, and a number of political parties use Loomio for local decision making, including the Brazilian Pirate Party, several regional U.K. Green Party chapters and Spain’s Podemos. Podemos has enthusiastically embraced digital-democracy tools for everything from its selection of European Parliament candidates to the creation of its party platform….(More)”

Infomocracy (Novel)

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Malka Older’s debut novel: “It’s been twenty years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global micro-democracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything’s on the line.

With power comes corruption. For Ken, this is his chance to do right by the idealistic Policy1st party and get a steady job in the big leagues. For Domaine, the election represents another staging ground in his ongoing struggle against the pax democratica. For Mishima, a dangerous Information operative, the whole situation is a puzzle: how do you keep the wheels running on the biggest political experiment of all time, when so many have so much to gain?…(More)