Covid-19 is spurring the digitisation of government

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

The Economist: “…Neither health care nor Britain is unique in relying heavily on paper. By preventing face-to-face meetings and closing the offices where bureaucrats shuffle documents, the pandemic has revealed how big a problem that is. Around the world, it has been impossible to get a court hearing, a passport or get married while locked down, since they all still require face-to-face interactions. Registering a business has been slower or impossible. Courts are a mess; elections a worrying prospect.

Governments that have long invested in digitising their systems endured less disruption. Those that have not are discovering how useful it would be if a lot more official business took place online.

Covid-19 has brought many aspects of bureaucratic life to a halt. In England at least 73,400 weddings had to be delayed—not just the ceremony, also the legal part—reckons the Office for National Statistics. In France courts closed in March for all but essential services, and did not reopen until late May. Most countries have extended visas for foreigners trapped by the pandemic, but consular services stopped almost everywhere. In America green-card applications were halted in April; they restarted in June. In Britain appointments to take biometric details of people applying for permanent residency ceased in March and only resumed partly in June.

Some applications cannot be delayed and there the pandemic has revealed the creakiness of even rich countries’ bureaucracies. As Florida was locking down, huge queues formed outside government offices to get the paper forms needed to sign up for unemployment insurance. In theory the state has a digital system, but it was so poorly set up that many could not access it. At the start of the pandemic the website crashed for days. Even several months later people trying to apply had to join a digital queue and wait for hours before being able to log in. In Alabama when government offices in Montgomery, the state capital, reopened, people camped outside, hoping to see an official who might help with their claims.

Where services did exist online, their inadequacies became apparent. Digital unemployment-insurance systems collapsed under a wave of new claimants. At the end of March the website of the INPS, the Italian social-security office, received 300,000 applications for welfare in a single day. The website crashed. Some of those who could access it were shown other people’s data. The authorities blamed not just the volume of applicants but also hackers trying to put in fraudulent claims. Criminals were a problem in America too. In the worst-affected state, Washington, $550m-650m, or one dollar in every eight, was paid out to fraudsters who exploited an outdated system of identity verification (about $300m was recovered)….

the pandemic has revealed that governments need to operate in new ways. This may mean the introduction of proper digital identities, which many countries lack. Track-and-trace systems require governments to know who their citizens are and to be able to contact them reliably. Estonia’s officials can do so easily; Britain’s and America’s cannot. In China in order to board public transport or enter their own apartment buildings people have to show QR codes on their phones to verify that they have not been to a virus hotspot recently….(More)”.

The Good Drone: How Social Movements Democratize Surveillance

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick: “Drones are famous for doing bad things: weaponized, they implement remote-control war; used for surveillance, they threaten civil liberties and violate privacy. In The Good Drone, Austin Choi-Fitzpatrick examines a different range of uses: the deployment of drones for the greater good. Choi-Fitzpatrick analyzes the way small-scale drones—as well as satellites, kites, and balloons—are used for a great many things, including documenting human rights abuses, estimating demonstration crowd size, supporting anti-poaching advocacy, and advancing climate change research. In fact, he finds, small drones are used disproportionately for good; nonviolent prosocial uses predominate.

Choi-Fitzpatrick’s broader point is that the use of technology by social movements goes beyond social media—and began before social media. From the barricades in Les Misérables to hacking attacks on corporate servers to the spread of #MeToo on Twitter, technology is used to raise awareness, but is also crucial in raising the cost of the status quo.

New technology in the air changes politics on the ground, and raises provocative questions along the way. What is the nature and future of the camera, when it is taken out of human hands? How will our ideas about privacy evolve when the altitude of a penthouse suite no longer guarantees it? Working at the leading edge of an emerging technology, Choi-Fitzpatrick takes a broad view, suggesting social change efforts rely on technology in new and unexpected ways…(More)”.

The Potential of Open Digital Ecosystems

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

About: “Omidyar Network India (ONI), in partnership with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), has undertaken a study to reimagine digital platforms for the public good, with the aim build a shared narrative around digital platforms and develop a holistic roadmap to foster their systematic adoption.

This study has especially benefited from collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. It builds on the thinking presented in the public consultation whitepaper on ‘Strategy for National Open Digital Ecosystems (NODEs)’ published by MeitY in February 2020, to which ONI and BCG have contributed.

This website outlines the key findings of the study and introduces a new paradigm, i.e. ODEs, which recognizes the importance of a strong governance framework as well as the community of stakeholders that make them effective….(More)”.

We the Possibility: Harnessing Public Entrepreneurship to Solve Our Most Urgent Problems

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Mitchell Weiss: “During his years as a public official, Mitchell Weiss was told that government can’t do new things or solve tough challenges–it’s too big and slow and bureaucratic. Sadly, this is what so many of us have come to believe. But in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings, he and his city hall colleagues raced to support survivors in new, innovative ways. This kind of entrepreneurial spirit and savvy in government is growing, transforming the public sector’s response to big problems at all levels.

In this inspiring and instructive book, Weiss, now a professor at Harvard Business School, argues that we must shift from a mindset of “Probability Government”–overly focused on performance management and on mimicking “best” practices–to “Possibility Government.” This means a leap to public leadership and management that embraces more imagination and riskier projects.

Weiss shares the basic tenets of this new way of governing in the book’s three sections:

  • Government that can imagine. Seeing problems as opportunities, and designing solutions with citizens.
  • Government that can try new things. Testing and experimentation as a regular part of solving public problems.
  • Government that can scale. Harnessing platform techniques for innovation and growth; and how public entrepreneurship can reinvigorate democracy.

The lessons unfold in the timely episodes Weiss has seen and studied: a heroin hackathon in opioid-ravaged Cincinnati; a series of blockchain experiments in Tbilisi to protect Georgian property from the Russians; the U.S. Special Operations Command prototyping of a hoverboard for chasing pirates, among many others.

At a crucial moment in the evolution of government’s role in our society, We the Possibility provides both inspiration and a positive model to help shape progress for generations to come….(More)”.

Designing Nudges for Success in Health Care

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Joseph D. Harrison at AMA Journal of Ethics: “Nudges are subtle changes to the design of the environment or the framing of information that can influence our behaviors. There is significant potential to use nudges in health care to improve patient outcomes and transform health care delivery. However, these interventions must be tested and implemented using a systematic approach. In this article, we describe several ways to design nudges for success by focusing on optimizing and fitting them into the clinical workflow, engaging the right stakeholders, and rapid experimentation….(More)”.

Behavioral Contagion Could Spread the Benefits of a Carbon Tax

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Robert H. Frank at the New York Times: “…Why, then, hasn’t the United States adopted a carbon tax? One hurdle is the fear that emissions would fall too slowly in response to a carbon tax, that more direct measures are needed. Another difficulty is that political leaders have reason to fear voter opposition to taxation of any kind. But there are persuasive rejoinders to both objections.

Regarding the first, critics are correct that a carbon tax alone won’t parry the climate threat. It is also true that as creatures of habit, humans tend to change their behavior only slowly, even in the face of significant financial incentives. But even small changes in behavior are greatly amplified by behavioral contagion — the social scientist’s term for how ideas and behaviors spread from person to person like infectious diseases. And if a carbon tax were to shift the behavior of some individuals now, those changes would quickly spread more widely.

Smoking rates, for example, changed little in the short run even as cigarette taxes rose sharply, but that wasn’t the end of the story. The most powerful predictor of whether someone will smoke is the percentage of her friends who smoke. Most smokers stick with their habit in the face of higher taxes, but a small minority quit, and still others refrain from starting.

Every peer group that includes those people thus contains a smaller proportion of smokers, which influences still others to quit or refrain, and so on. This contagion process explains why the percentage of American adults who smoke has fallen by two-thirds since the mid-1960s.

Behavioral contagion would similarly amplify the effects of a carbon tax. By making solar power cheaper in comparison with fossil fuels, for example, the tax would initially encourage a small number of families to install solar panels on their rooftops. But as with cigarette taxes, it’s the indirect effects that really matter….(More)”.

Behavior-first government transformation

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Deloitte: “…When experts try to explain why so many transformation initiatives fail, both in the commercial world and at government agencies, they rarely talk about habit or other human factors. It’s much easier to focus on a project’s most expensive, visible, or contentious elements, such as new technologies, process redesign, or changes to the organizational chart. But the human element can be crucial to the success of organizational transformation.

This is true when you’re aiming for transformation with a capital T, such as designing and implementing an entirely new operating model. It’s also true when you’re trying to make some aspects of an existing model work better, or when you’re trying to build a new capability. No matter what kind of change an organization wants to implement, it’s crucial to understand how the proposed changes will affect people as individuals, and what it might take—psychologically, emotionally, or politically—to make them change their behavior. After all, if people keep doing the same things in the same way, what has really been transformed?

Even when leaders understand that they need to encourage behavioral change, they often aim for that goal using strategies without a proven track record. For example, they might offer financial incentives to employees who meet certain performance targets, without clear evidence that this kind of reinforcement works in that context. What if the motivating factors that can overcome inertia in a certain situation have more to do with how employees feel about their work, or how they cohere as a community?

Fortunately, thanks to the work of behavioral psychologists and economists, as well as neuroscientists, we understand much more than we used to about human behavior and its drivers. This work has demonstrated, for example:

  • What typically motivates people—a sense of purpose, a sense of autonomy, and the ability to grow in one’s job1
  • Why people engage in “predictably irrational” behavior, and how we can harness this understanding to shape and nudge behavior2
  • How to use customer analytics and customer experience techniques such as human-centered design to drive workforce experience3

We also know that transparency can help a transformation initiative succeed. By keeping stakeholders informed about all aspects of the effort and inviting feedback, project leaders can gain insights into human motivation and behavior, and how their employees are experiencing the change, as those factors pertain to their particular project. This can help leaders understand which aspects of the transformation are working and which are not, and it helps to build trust among everyone involved.

“Behavior-first change” applies insights from a range of disciplines including anthropology, behavioral economics, neuroscience, and psychology to better understand and influence human behavior—and governments are beginning to apply it to their transformation initiatives. In fact, with more than 200 behavioral insights units in government worldwide, the public sector has been at the forefront of this movement. So, we’re not proposing a behavioral change approach as something radically new. Instead, we’re suggesting government agencies that might already be applying these techniques externally can systematically apply these insights to their own transformations—whether “capital T” programs or more focused efforts—to improve the chances that these programs will realize their intended outcomes….(More)”.

How to destroy Surveillance Capitalism

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Cory Doctorow: “…Today, there is a widespread belief that machine learning and commercial surveillance can turn even the most fumble-tongued conspiracy theorist into a svengali who can warp your perceptions and win your belief by locating vulnerable people and then pitching them with A.I.-refined arguments that bypass their rational faculties and turn everyday people into flat Earthers, anti-vaxxers, or even Nazis. When the RAND Corporation blames Facebook for “radicalization” and when Facebook’s role in spreading coronavirus misinformation is blamed on its algorithm, the implicit message is that machine learning and surveillance are causing the changes in our consensus about what’s true.

After all, in a world where sprawling and incoherent conspiracy theories like Pizzagate and its successor, QAnon, have widespread followings, something must be afoot.

But what if there’s another explanation? What if it’s the material circumstances, and not the arguments, that are making the difference for these conspiracy pitchmen? What if the trauma of living through real conspiracies all around us — conspiracies among wealthy people, their lobbyists, and lawmakers to bury inconvenient facts and evidence of wrongdoing (these conspiracies are commonly known as “corruption”) — is making people vulnerable to conspiracy theories?

If it’s trauma and not contagion — material conditions and not ideology — that is making the difference today and enabling a rise of repulsive misinformation in the face of easily observed facts, that doesn’t mean our computer networks are blameless. They’re still doing the heavy work of locating vulnerable people and guiding them through a series of ever-more-extreme ideas and communities.

Belief in conspiracy is a raging fire that has done real damage and poses real danger to our planet and species, from epidemics kicked off by vaccine denial to genocides kicked off by racist conspiracies to planetary meltdown caused by denial-inspired climate inaction. Our world is on fire, and so we have to put the fires out — to figure out how to help people see the truth of the world through the conspiracies they’ve been confused by.

But firefighting is reactive. We need fire prevention. We need to strike at the traumatic material conditions that make people vulnerable to the contagion of conspiracy. Here, too, tech has a role to play.

There’s no shortage of proposals to address this. From the EU’s Terrorist Content Regulation, which requires platforms to police and remove “extremist” content, to the U.S. proposals to force tech companies to spy on their users and hold them liable for their users’ bad speech, there’s a lot of energy to force tech companies to solve the problems they created.

There’s a critical piece missing from the debate, though. All these solutions assume that tech companies are a fixture, that their dominance over the internet is a permanent fact. Proposals to replace Big Tech with a more diffused, pluralistic internet are nowhere to be found. Worse: The “solutions” on the table today require Big Tech to stay big because only the very largest companies can afford to implement the systems these laws demand….(More)”.

Analogia: The Emergence of Technology Beyond Programmable Control

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst
Analogia

Book by George Dyson: “In 1716, the philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz spent eight days taking the cure with Peter the Great at Bad Pyrmont in Saxony, seeking to initiate a digitally-computed takeover of the world. In his classic books, Darwin Among the Machines and Turing’s Cathedral, Dyson chronicled the realization of Leibniz’s dream at the hands of a series of iconoclasts who brought his ideas to life. Now, in his pathbreaking new book, Analogia, he offers a chronicle of people who fought for the other side—the Native American leader Geronimo and physicist Leo Szilard, among them—a series of stories that will change our view not only of the past but also of the future.

The convergence of a startling historical archaeology with Dyson’s unusual personal story—set alternately in the rarified world of cutting-edge physics and computer science, in Princeton, and in the rainforest of the Northwest Coast—leads to a prophetic vision of an analog revolution already under way. We are, Dyson reveals, on the cusp of a new moment in human history, driven by a generation of machines whose powers are beyond programmable control…(More)”.

Too Much Information: Understanding What You Don’t Want to Know

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Cass Sunstein: “How information can make us happy or miserable, and why we sometimes avoid it and sometimes seek it out.

How much information is too much? Do we need to know how many calories are in the giant vat of popcorn that we bought on our way into the movie theater? Do we want to know if we are genetically predisposed to a certain disease? Can we do anything useful with next week’s weather forecast for Paris if we are not in Paris? In Too Much Information, Cass Sunstein examines the effects of information on our lives. Policymakers emphasize “the right to know,” but Sunstein takes a different perspective, arguing that the focus should be on human well-being and what information contributes to it. Government should require companies, employers, hospitals, and others to disclose information not because of a general “right to know” but when the information in question would significantly improve people’s lives.

Sunstein argues that the information on warnings and mandatory labels is often confusing or irrelevant, yielding no benefit. He finds that people avoid information if they think it will make them sad (and seek information they think will make them happy). Our information avoidance and information seeking is notably heterogeneous—some of us do want to know the popcorn calorie count, others do not. Of course, says Sunstein, we are better off with stop signs, warnings on prescription drugs, and reminders about payment due dates. But sometimes less is more. What we need is more clarity about what information is actually doing or achieving…(More)”