Tap into the Wisdom of Your ‘Inner Crowd

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Essay by Emir Efendić and Philippe Van de Calseyde: “Take your best guess for the questions below. Without looking up the answers, jot down your guess in your notes app or on a piece of paper. 

  1. What is the weight of the Liberty Bell? 
  2. Saudi Arabia consumes what percentage of the oil it produces? 
  3. What percent of the world’s population lives in China, India, and the European Union combined?

Next, we want you to take a second guess at these questions. But here’s the catch, this time try answering from the perspective a friend whom you often disagree with. (For us, it’s the colleague with whom we shared an office in grad school, ever the contrarian.) How would your friend answer these questions? Write down the second guesses. 

Now, the correct answers. The Liberty Bell weighs 2,080 pounds, and, when we conducted the study in 2021, Saudi Arabia consumed 32.5 percent of the oil it produced, and 43.2 percent of the world’s population lived in China, India, and the European Union combined.

For the final step, compare your first guess with the average of both your guesses.

If you’re like most of the participants in our experiment, averaging the two guesses for each question brings you closer to the answer. Why this is has to do with the fascinating way in which people make estimates and how principles of aggregation can be used to improve numerical estimates. 

A lot of research has shown that the aggregate of individual judgements can be quite accurate, in what has been termed the “wisdom of the crowds.” What makes a crowd so wise? Its wisdom relies on a relatively simple principle: when people’s guesses are sufficiently diverse and independent, averaging judgments increases accuracy by canceling out errors across individuals. 

Interestingly, research suggests that the same principles underlying wise crowds also apply when multiple estimates from a single person are averaged—a phenomenon known as the “wisdom of the inner crowd.” As it turns out, the average guess of the same person is often more accurate than each individual guess on its own.

Although effective, multiple guesses from a single person do suffer from a major drawback. They are typically quite similar to one another, as people tend to anchor on their first guess when generating a second guess….(More)”.

Psychological Processes in Social Media: Why We Click

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Rosanna Guadagno: “Incorporating relevant theory and research from psychology (social, cognitive, clinical, developmental, and personality), mass communication, and media studies, Psychological Processes in Social Media: Why We Click examines both the positive and negative psychological impact of social media use. The book covers a broad range of topics such as research methods, social influence and the viral spread of information, the use of social media in political movements, prosocial behavior, trolling and cyberbullying, friendship and romantic relationships, and much more. Emphasizing the integration of theory and application throughout, Psychological Processes in Social Media: Why We Click offers an illuminating look at the psychological implications and processes around the use of social media..(More)”.

Three approaches to re-design digital public spaces 

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by  Gianluca Sgueo: “The underlying tenet of so-called “human centred-design” is a public administration capable of delivering a satisfactory (even gratifying) digital experience to every user. Public services, however, are still marked by severe qualitative asymmetries, both nationally and supranationally. In this article we discuss the key shortcomings of digital public spaces, and we explore three approaches to re-design such spaces with the aim to widen the existing gaps separating the ideal from the actual rendering of human-centred digital government…(More)”.

Better Government Tech Is Possible

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Beth Noveck: “In the first four months of the Covid-19 pandemic, government leaders paid $100 million for management consultants at McKinsey to model the spread of the coronavirus and build online dashboards to project hospital capacity.

It’s unsurprising that leaders turned to McKinsey for help, given the notorious backwardness of government technology. Our everyday experience with online shopping and search only highlights the stark contrast between user-friendly interfaces and the frustrating inefficiencies of government websites—or worse yet, the ongoing need to visit a government office to submit forms in person. The 2016 animated movie Zootopia depicts literal sloths running the DMV, a scene that was guaranteed to get laughs given our low expectations of government responsiveness.

More seriously, these doubts are reflected in the plummeting levels of public trust in government. From early Healthcare.gov failures to the more recent implosions of state unemployment websites, policymaking without attention to the technology that puts the policy into practice has led to disastrous consequences.

The root of the problem is that the government, the largest employer in the US, does not keep its employees up-to-date on the latest tools and technologies. When I served in the Obama White House as the nation’s first deputy chief technology officer, I had to learn constitutional basics and watch annual training videos on sexual harassment and cybersecurity. But I was never required to take a course on how to use technology to serve citizens and solve problems. In fact, the last significant legislation about what public professionals need to know was the Government Employee Training Act, from 1958, well before the internet was invented.

In the United States, public sector awareness of how to use data or human-centered design is very low. Out of 400-plus public servants surveyed in 2020, less than 25 percent received training in these more tech-enabled ways of working, though 70 percent said they wanted such training…(More)”.

When What’s Right Is Also Wrong: The Pandemic As A Corporate Social Responsibility Paradox

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Heidi Reed: “When the COVID-19 pandemic first hit, businesses were faced with difficult decisions where making the ‘right choice’ just wasn’t possible. For example, if a business chose to shut down, it might protect employees from catching COVID, but at the same time, it would leave them without a paycheck. This was particularly true in the U.S. where the government played a more limited role in regulating business behavior, leaving managers and owners to make hard choices.

In this way, the pandemic is a societal paradox in which the social objectives of public health and economic prosperity are both interdependent and contradictory. How does the public judge businesses then when they make decisions favoring one social objective over another? To answer this question, I qualitatively surveyed the American public at the start of the COVID-19 crisis about what they considered to be responsible and irresponsible business behavior in response to the pandemic. Analyzing their answers led me to create the 4R Model of Moral Sensemaking of Competing Social Problems.

The 4R Model relies on two dimensions: the extent to which people prioritize one social problem over another and the extent to which they exhibit psychological discomfort (i.e. cognitive dissonance). In the first mode, Reconcile, people view the problems as compatible. There is no need to prioritize then and no resulting dissonance. These people think, “Businesses can just convert to making masks to help the cause and still make a profit.”

The second mode, Resign, similarly does not prioritize one problem over another; however, the problems are seen as competing, suggesting a high level of cognitive dissonance. These people might say, “It’s dangerous to stay open, but if the business closes, people will lose their jobs. Both decisions are bad.”

In the third mode, Ranking, people use prioritizing to reduce cognitive dissonance. These people say things like, “I understand people will be fired, but it’s more important to stop the virus.”

In the fourth and final mode, Rectify, people start by ranking but show signs of lingering dissonance as they acknowledge the harm created by prioritizing one problem over another. Unlike with the Resign mode, they try to find ways to reduce this harm. A common response in this mode would be, “Businesses should shut down, but they should also try to help employees file for unemployment.”

The 4R model has strong implications for other grand challenges where there may be competing social objectives such as in addressing climate change. To this end, the typology helps corporate social responsibility (CSR) decision-makers understand how they may be judged when businesses are forced to re- or de-prioritize CSR dimensions. In other words, it helps us understand how people make moral sense of business behavior when the right thing to do is paradoxically also the wrong thing…(More)”

Computer: A History of the Information Machine

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Updated edition of book by Martin Campbell-Kelly, William Aspray, Nathan Ensmenger, Jeffrey R. Yost; “…traces the history of the computer and shows how business and government were the first to explore its unlimited, information-processing potential. Old-fashioned entrepreneurship combined with scientific know-how inspired now famous computer engineers to create the technology that became IBM. Wartime needs drove the giant ENIAC, the first fully electronic computer. Later, the PC enabled modes of computing that liberated people from room-sized, mainframe computers.

This third edition provides updated analysis on software and computer networking, including new material on the programming profession, social networking, and mobile computing. It expands its focus on the IT industry with fresh discussion on the rise of Google and Facebook as well as how powerful applications are changing the way we work, consume, learn, and socialize. Computer is an insightful look at the pace of technological advancement and the seamless way computers are integrated into the modern world. Through comprehensive history and accessible writing, Computer is perfect for courses on computer history, technology history, and information and society, as well as a range of courses in the fields of computer science, communications, sociology, and management…(More)”.

Supporting Safer Digital Spaces

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Suzie Dunn, Tracy Vaillancourt and Heather Brittain: “Various forms of digital technology are being used to inflict significant harms online. This is a pervasive issue in online interactions, in particular with regard to technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) and technology-facilitated violence (TFV) against LGBTQ+ people. This modern form of violence perpetuates gender inequality and discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and has significant impacts on its targets.

As part of a multi-year research project Supporting a Safer Internet (in partnership with the International Development Research Centre) exploring the prevalence and impacts of TFGBV experienced by women, transgender, gender non-conforming and gender-diverse people, as well as TFV against LGBTQ+ individuals, an international survey was conducted by Ipsos on behalf of the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). The survey examined the influence of gender and sexual orientation on people’s experiences with online harms, with a focus on countries in the Global South. Data was collected from 18,149 people of all genders in 18 countries.

The special report provides background information on TFGBV and TFV against LGBTQ+ people by summarizing some of the existing research on the topic. It then presents the quantitative data collected on people’s experiences with, and opinions on, online harms. A list of recommendations is provided for governments, technology companies, academics, researchers and civil society organizations on how they can contribute to addressing and ending TFV…(More)”

(Read the Supporting Safer Digital Spaces: Highlights here.; Read the French translation of the Highlights here.)

Systems Thinking, Big Data and Public Policy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Mauricio Covarrubias: “Systems thinking and big data analysis are two fundamental tools in the formulation of public policies due to their potential to provide a more comprehensive and evidence-based understanding of the problems and challenges that a society faces.

Systems thinking is important in the formulation of public policies because it allows for a holistic and integrated approach to addressing the complex challenges and issues that a society faces. According to Ilona Kickbusch and David Gleicher, “Addressing wicked problems requires a high level of systems thinking. If there is a single lesson to be drawn from the first decade of the 21st century, it is that surprise, instability and extraordinary change will continue to be regular features of our lives.”

Public policies often involve multiple stakeholders, interrelated factors and unintended consequences, which require a deep understanding of how the system as a whole operates. Systems thinking enables policymakers to identify the key factors that influence a problem and how they relate to each other, enabling them to develop solutions that more effectively address the issues. Instead of trying to address a problem in isolation, systems thinking considers the problem as part of a whole and seeks solutions that address the root causes.

Additionally, systems thinking helps policymakers anticipate the unintended consequences of their decisions and actions. By understanding how different components of the system interact, they can predict the possible side effects of a policy in other areas. This can help avoid decisions that have unintended consequences…(More)”.

Augmented Reality Is Coming for Cities

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Greg Lindsay: “It’s still early in the metaverse, however — no killer app has yet emerged, and the financial returns on disruption are falling as interest rates rise.

Already, a handful of companies have come forward to partner with cities instead of fighting them. For example, InCitu uses AR to visualize the building envelopes of planned projects in New York City, Buffalo, and beyond in hopes of winning over skeptical communities through seeing-is-believing. The startup recently partnered with Washington, DC’s Department of Buildings to aid its civic engagement efforts. Another of its partners is Snap, the Gen Z social media giant currently currying favor with cities and civic institutions as it pivots to AR for its next act…

For cities to gain the metaverse they want tomorrow, they will need to invest the scarce staff time and resources today. That means building a coalition of the willing among Apple, Google, Niantic, Snap and others; throwing their weight behind open standards through participation in umbrella groups such as the Metaverse Standards Forum; and becoming early, active participants in each of the major platforms in order to steer traffic toward designated testbeds and away from highly trafficked areas.

It’s a tall order for cities grappling with a pandemic crisis, drug-and-mental-health crisis, and climate crisis all at once, but a necessary one to prevent the metaverse (of all things!) from becoming the next one…(More)”.

Will Democracies Stand Up to Big Brother?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Simon Johnson, Daron Acemoglu and Sylvia Barmack: “Rapid advances in AI and AI-enhanced surveillance tools have created an urgent need for international norms and coordination to set sensible standards. But with oppressive authoritarian regimes unlikely to cooperate, the world’s democracies should start preparing to play economic hardball…Fiction writers have long imagined scenarios in which every human action is monitored by some malign centralized authority. But now, despite their warnings, we find ourselves careening toward a dystopian future worthy of George Orwell’s 1984. The task of assessing how to protect our rights – as consumers, workers, and citizens – has never been more urgent.

One sensible proposal is to limit patents on surveillance technologies to discourage their development and overuse. All else being equal, this could tilt the development of AI-related technologies away from surveillance applications – at least in the United States and other advanced economies, where patent protections matter, and where venture capitalists will be reluctant to back companies lacking strong intellectual-property rights. But even if such sensible measures are adopted, the world will remain divided between countries with effective safeguards on surveillance and those without them. We therefore also need to consider the legitimate basis for trade between these emergent blocs.

AI capabilities have leapt forward over the past 18 months, and the pace of further development is unlikely to slow. The public release of ChatGPT in November 2022 was the generative-AI shot heard round the world. But just as important has been the equally rapid increase in governments and corporations’ surveillance capabilities. Since generative AI excels at pattern matching, it has made facial recognition remarkably accurate (though not without some major flaws). And the same general approach can be used to distinguish between “good” and problematic behavior, based simply on how people move or comport themselves.

Such surveillance technically leads to “higher productivity,” in the sense that it augments an authority’s ability to compel people to do what they are supposed to be doing. For a company, this means performing jobs at what management considers to be the highest productivity level. For a government, it means enforcing the law or otherwise ensuring compliance with those in power.

Unfortunately, a millennium of experience has established that increased productivity does not necessarily lead to improvements in shared prosperity. Today’s AI-powered surveillance allows overbearing managers and authoritarian political leaders to enforce their rules more effectively. But while productivity may increase, most people will not benefit…(More)”