‘We were just trying to get it to work’: The failure that started the internet

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Scott Nover: “At the height of the Cold War, Charley Kline and Bill Duvall were two bright-eyed engineers on the front lines of one of technology’s most ambitious experiments. Kline, a 21-year-old graduate student at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Duvall, a 29-year-old systems programmer at Stanford Research Institute (SRI), were working on a system called Arpanet, short for the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network. Funded by the US Department of Defense, the project aimed to create a network that could directly share data without relying on telephone lines. Instead, this system used a method of data delivery called “packet switching” that would later form the basis for the modern internet.

It was the first test of a technology that would change almost every facet of human life. But before it could work, you had to log in.

Kline sat at his keyboard between the lime-green walls of UCLA’s Boelter Hall Room 3420, prepared to connect with Duvall, who was working a computer halfway across the state of California. But Kline didn’t even make it all the way through the word “L-O-G-I-N” before Duvall told him over the phone that his system crashed. Thanks to that error, the first “message” that Kline sent Duvall on that autumn day in 1969 was simply the letters “L-O”…(More)”.

Digital Media Metaphors

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Johan Farkas and Marcus Maloney: “Bringing together leading scholars from media studies and digital sociology, this edited volume provides a comprehensive introduction to digital media metaphors, unpacking their power and limitations.

Digital technologies have reshaped our way of life. To grasp their dynamics and implications, people often rely on metaphors to provide a shared frame of reference. Scholars, journalists, tech companies, and policymakers alike speak of digital clouds, bubbles, frontiers, platforms, trolls, and rabbit holes. Some of these metaphors distort the workings of the digital realm and neglect key consequences. This collection, structured in three parts, explores metaphors across digital infrastructures, content, and users. Within these parts, each chapter examines a specific metaphor that has become near-ubiquitous in public debate. Doing so, the book engages not only with the technological, but also the social, political, and environmental implications of digital technologies and relations.

This unique collection will interest students and scholars of digital media and the broader fields of media and communication studies, sociology, and science and technology studies…(More)”.

Determinants of behaviour and their efficacy as targets of behavioural change interventions

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Dolores Albarracín, Bita Fayaz-Farkhad & Javier A. Granados Samayoa: “Unprecedented social, environmental, political and economic challenges — such as pandemics and epidemics, environmental degradation and community violence — require taking stock of how to promote behaviours that benefit individuals and society at large. In this Review, we synthesize multidisciplinary meta-analyses of the individual and social-structural determinants of behaviour (for example, beliefs and norms, respectively) and the efficacy of behavioural change interventions that target them. We find that, across domains, interventions designed to change individual determinants can be ordered by increasing impact as those targeting knowledge, general skills, general attitudes, beliefs, emotions, behavioural skills, behavioural attitudes and habits. Interventions designed to change social-structural determinants can be ordered by increasing impact as legal and administrative sanctions; programmes that increase institutional trustworthiness; interventions to change injunctive norms; monitors and reminders; descriptive norm interventions; material incentives; social support provision; and policies that increase access to a particular behaviour. We find similar patterns for health and environmental behavioural change specifically. Thus, policymakers should focus on interventions that enable individuals to circumvent obstacles to enacting desirable behaviours rather than targeting salient but ineffective determinants of behaviour such as knowledge and beliefs…(More)”

Innovation amnesia: Technology as a substitute for politics

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Nathan Schneider: “…outlines a theory of amnesia in the face of innovation: when apparent technological innovations occasion the disregard of preexisting cultural, legal, and infrastructural norms. Innovation amnesia depends on cultural patterns that appear to be increasingly widespread: the valorization of technological innovation and the sensation of limited political space for reforming social arrangements. The resulting amnesia is by default an extension of existing structural inequalities. If innovations arise through deploying concentrated private wealth, the amnesia will likely target institutions that facilitate collective power among less powerful people. Up and down social hierarchies, however, achieving amnesia through innovation can bear irresistible allure. When other paths for structural change become mired in inertia or gridlock, amnesia may appear to be the only available pathway to reform. The purpose of a theory of amnesia is to assist affected communities in noticing it when it occurs and wielding it to their advantage, particularly through mobilizing self-governance around moments of innovation…(More)”.

Information Technology for Peace and Security

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Christian Reuter: “Technological and scientific progress, especially the rapid development in information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI), plays a crucial role regarding questions of peace and security. This textbook, extended and updated in its second edition, addresses the significance, potential of IT, as well as the challenges it poses, with regard to peace and security.

It introduces the reader to the concepts of peace, conflict, and security research, especially focusing on natural, technical and computer science perspectives. In the following sections, it sheds light on cyber conflicts, war and peace, cyber arms control, cyber attribution, infrastructures, artificial intelligence, as well ICT in peace and conflict…(More)”.

Lottocracy: Democracy Without Elections

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Alexander Guerrero: “Democracy is in trouble. The system isn’t working. Inequality increases, many can barely get by, the elite control our political institutions. The earth, our only home, gets warmer year by year. We are deeply divided, unable to work together to address the problems we face. What if elections are the problem?

Lottocracy makes the case that electoral representative democracy—although the best form of government that has been tried—runs into deep problems in the modern world.

But it is not a message of despair. To the contrary. Lottocracy sets out a detailed vision of a new kind of democracy, as system that uses lotteries, rather than elections, to select our political representatives.

Perhaps we can use this wild ancient idea to build a new, better democracy for the 21st century and beyond…(More)”.

Enabling Digital Innovation in Government

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

OECD Report: “…presents the OECD’s definition of GovTech (Chapter 2) and sets out the GovTech Policy Framework (Chapter 3). The framework is designed to guide governments on how to establish the conditions for successful, sustainable, and effective GovTech.

The framework consists of two parts: the GovTech Building Blocks and the GovTech Enablers. The building blocks (Chapter 3) represent the foundations at the micro-level needed to establish impactful GovTech practices within public sectors by introducing more agile practices, mitigating risks, and building meaningful collaboration with the GovTech ecosystem. These building blocks include:

  • Mature digital government infrastructure: including the necessary technology, infrastructure, tools, and data governance to enable both GovTech collaborations and the digital solutions they develop.
  • Capacities for collaboration and experimentation: within the public sector, including the digital skills and multidisciplinary teams; agile processes, tools, and methodologies; and a culture that encourages experimentation and accepts failure. 
  • Resources and implementation support: considering how to make funding available, how to evolve procurement approaches, and how to scale successful pilots across organisations and internationally.
  • Availability and maturity of GovTech partners: including acceleration programmes to support start-ups growth by facilitating access to capital, the scaling up of solutions, and minimising barriers to access procurement opportunities.

At the macro-level, the enablers (Chapter 4) instead create an environment that fosters the development of GovTech and facilitates good practices. This is done at the:

  • Strategic layer: where governments could use GovTech strategies and champions in senior leadership positions to mobilise support and set a clear direction for GovTech.
  • Institutional layer: where governments could seek collaboration and knowledge-sharing across institutions at the national, regional, or policy levels.
  • Network layer: where both governments and GovTech actors should seek to mobilise the network collectively to strengthen the GovTech practice and garner broader support from communities…(More)”

Local Systems

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Position Paper by USAID: “…describes the key approaches USAID will use to translate systems thinking into systems practice. It focuses on ways USAID can better understand and engage local systems to support them in producing more sustainable results. Systems thinking is a mindset and set of tools that we use to understand how systems behave and produce certain results or outcomes. Systems practice is the application of systems thinking to better understand challenges and strengthen the capacity of local systems to unlock locally led, sustained progress. The shift from systems thinking to systems practice is driven by a desire to integrate systems practice throughout the Program Cycle and increase our capacity to actively and adaptively manage programming in ways that recognize complexity and help make our programs more effective and sustainable.

These approaches will be utilized alongside and within the context of USAID’s policies and guidance, including technical guidance for specific sectors, as well as evidence and lessons learned from partners around the world. Systems thinking is a long-standing discipline that can serve as a powerful tool for understanding and working with local systems. It has been a consistent component of USAID’s decades-long commitment to locally led development and humanitarian assistance. USAID uses systems thinking to better understand the complex and interrelated challenges we confront – from climate change to migration to governance – and the perspectives of diverse stakeholders on these issues. When we understand challenges as complex systems – where outcomes emerge from the interactions and relationships between actors and elements in that system – we can leverage and help strengthen the local capacities and relationships that will ultimately drive sustainable progress…(More)”.

Science and technology’s contribution to the UK economy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

UK House of Lords Primer: “It is difficult to accurately pinpoint the economic contribution of science and technology to the UK economy. This is because of the way sectors are divided up and reported in financial statistics. 

 For example, in September 2024 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported the following gross value added (GVA) figures by industry/sector for 2023:

  • £71bn for IT and other information service activities 
  • £20.6bn for scientific research and development 

This would amount to £91.6bn, forming approximately 3.9% of the total UK GVA of £2,368.7bn for 2023. However, a number of other sectors could also be included in these figures, for example: 

  • the manufacture of computer, certain machinery and electrical components (valued at £38bn in 2023) 
  • telecommunications (valued at £34.5bn) 

If these two sectors were included too, GVA across all four sectors would total £164.1bn, approximately 6.9% of the UK’s 2023 GVA. However, this would likely still exclude relevant contributions that happen to fall within the definitions of different industries. For example, the manufacture of spacecraft and related machinery falls within the same sector as the manufacture of aircraft in the ONS’s data (this sector was valued at £10.8bn for 2023).  

Alternatively, others have made estimates of the economic contribution of more specific sectors connected to science and technology. For example: 

  • Oxford Economics, an economic advisory firm, has estimated that, in 2023, the life sciences sector contributed over £13bn to the UK economy and employed one in every 121 employed people 
  • the government has estimated the value of the digital sector (comprising information technology and digital content and media) at £158.3bn for 2022
  • a 2023 government report estimated the value of the UK’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector at around £3.7bn (in terms of GVA) and that the sector employed around 50,040 people
  • the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a non-profit organisation, reported estimates that the GVA of the UK’s net zero economy (encompassing sectors such as renewables, carbon capture, green and certain manufacturing) was £74bn in 2022/23 and that it supported approximately 765,700 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs…(More)”.

The Critical Role of Questions in Building Resilient Democracies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stefaan G. Verhulst, Hannah Chafetz, and Alex Fischer: “Asking questions in new and participatory ways can complement advancements in data science and AI while enabling more inclusive and more adaptive democracies…

Yet a crisis, as the saying goes, always contains kernels of opportunity. Buried within our current dilemma—indeed, within one of the underlying causes of it—is a potential solution. Democracies are resilient and adaptive, not static. And importantly, data and artificial intelligence (AI), if implemented responsibly, can contribute to making them more resilient. Technologies such as AI-supported digital public squares and crowd-sourcing are examples of how generative AI and large language models can improve community connectivity, societal health, and public services. Communities can leverage these tools for democratic participation and democratizing information. Through this period of technological transition, policy makers and communities are imagining how digital technologies can better engage our collective intelligence…

Achieving this requires new tools and approaches, specifically the collective process of asking better questions.

Formulated inclusively, questions help establish shared priorities and impart focus, efficiency, and equity to public policy. For instance, school systems can identify indicators and patterns of experiences, such as low attendance rates, that signal a student is at risk of not completing school. However, they rarely ask the positive outlier question of what enables some at-risk students to overcome challenges and finish school. Is it a good teacher relationship, an after-school program, the support of a family member, or a combination of these and other factors? Asking outlier (and orphan, or overlooked and neglected) questions can help refocus programs and guide policies toward areas with the highest potential for impact.

Not asking the right questions can also have adverse effects. For example, many city governments have not asked whether and how people of different genders, in different age groups, or with different physical mobility needs experience local public transportation systems. Creating the necessary infrastructure for people with a variety of needs to travel safely and efficiently increases health and well-being. Questions like whether sidewalks are big enough for strollers and whether there is sufficient public transport near schools can help spotlight areas for improvement, and show where age- or gender-disaggregated data is needed most…(More)”.