Artificial Intelligence and Big Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Frans L. Leeuw and Michael Bamberger: “…explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data contribute to the evaluation of the rule of law (covering legal arrangements, empirical legal research, law and technology, and international law), and social and economic development programs in both industrialized and developing countries. Issues of ethics and bias in the use of AI are also addressed and indicators of the growth of knowledge in the field are discussed.

Interdisciplinary and international in scope, and bringing together leading academics and practitioners from across the globe, the book explores the applications of AI and big data in Rule of Law and development evaluation, identifies differences in the approaches used in the two fields, and how each could learn from the approaches used in the other, as well as differences in the AI-related issues addressed in industrialized nations compared to those addressed in Africa and Asia.

Artificial Intelligence and Big Data is an essential read for researchers, academics and students working in the fields of Rule of Law and Development, and researchers in institutions working on new applications in AI will all benefit from the book’s practical insights…(More)”.

Behavioral AI: Unleash Decision Making with Data

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Rogayeh Tabrizi: “…delivers an intuitive roadmap to help organizations disentangle the complexity of their data to create tangible and lasting value. The book explains how to balance the multiple disciplines that power AI and behavioral economics using a combination of the right questions and insightful problem solving.

You’ll learn why intellectual diversity and combining subject matter experts in psychology, behavior, economics, physics, computer science, and engineering is essential to creating advanced AI solutions. You’ll also discover:

  • How behavioral economics principles influence data models and governance architectures and make digital transformation processes more efficient and effective
  • Discussions of the most important barriers to value in typical big data and AI projects and how to bring them down
  • The most effective methodology to help shorten the long, wasteful process of “boiling the ocean of data”

An exciting and essential resource for managers, executives, board members, and other business leaders engaged or interested in harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and big data, Behavioral AI will also benefit data and machine learning professionals…(More)”

A Century of Tomorrows 

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Glenn Adamson: “For millennia, predicting the future was the province of priests and prophets, the realm of astrologers and seers. Then, in the twentieth century, futurologists emerged, claiming that data and design could make planning into a rational certainty. Over time, many of these technologists and trend forecasters amassed power as public intellectuals, even as their predictions proved less than reliable. Now, amid political and ecological crises of our own making, we drown in a cacophony of potential futures-including, possibly, no future at all.

A Century of Tomorrows offers an illuminating account of how the world was transformed by the science (or is it?) of futurecasting. Beneath the chaos of competing tomorrows, Adamson reveals a hidden order: six key themes that have structured visions of what’s next. Helping him to tell this story are remarkable characters, including self-proclaimed futurologists such as Buckminster Fuller and Stewart Brand, as well as an eclectic array of other visionaries who have influenced our thinking about the world ahead: Octavia Butler and Ursula LeGuin, Shulamith Firestone and Sun Ra, Marcus Garvey and Timothy Leary, and more.

Arriving at a moment of collective anxiety and fragile hope, Adamson’s extraordinary bookshows how our projections for the future are, always and ultimately, debates about the present. For tomorrow is contained within the only thing we can ever truly know: today…(More)”.

Working With Cracks

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

An excerpt from Everyday Habits for Transforming Systems by Adam Kahane: “Systems are structured to keep producing the behaviors and results they are producing, and therefore often seem solid and unchangeable—but they are not. They are built, and they collapse. They crack and are cracked, which opens up new possibilities that some people find frightening and others find hopeful. Radical engagement involves looking for, moving toward, and working with these cracks—not ignoring or shying away from them. We do this by seeking out and working with openings, alongside others who are doing the same…

Al Etmanski has pioneered the transformation of the living conditions of Canadians with disabilities, away from segregation, dependency, and second-class status toward connection, agency, and justice. I have spoken with him and studied what he and others have written about his decades of experience, and especially about how his strategy and approach have evolved and enabled him to make the contributions he has. He has advanced through repeatedly searching out and working with openings or cracks (breakdowns and bright spots) in the social-economic-political-institutional-cultural “disability system.”..(More)”.

Community Data: Creative Approaches to Empowering People with Information

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Rahul Bhargava: “…new toolkit for data storytelling in community settings, one purpose-built for goals like inclusion, empowerment, and impact. Data science and visualization has spread into new domains it was designed for – community organizing, education, journalism, civic governance, and more. The dominant computational methods and processes, which have not changed in response, are causing significant discriminatory and harmful impacts, documented by leading scholars across a variety of populations. Informed by 15 years of collaborations in academic and professional settings with nonprofits and marginalized populations, the book articulates a new approach for aligning the processes and media of data work with social good outcomes, learning from the practices of newspapers, museums, community groups, artists, and libraries.

This book introduces a community-driven framework as a response to the urgent need to realign data theories and methods around justice and empowerment to avoid further replicating harmful power dynamics and ensure everyone has a seat at the table in data-centered community processes. It offers a broader toolbox for working with data and presenting it, pushing beyond the limited vocabulary of surveys, spreadsheets, charts and graphs…(More)”.

The Social Biome: How Everyday Communication Connects and Shapes Us

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Andy J. Merolla and Jeffrey A. Hall: “We spend much of our waking lives communicating with others. How does each moment of interaction shape not only our relationships but also our worldviews? And how can we create moments of connection that improve our health and well-being, particularly in a world in which people are feeling increasingly isolated?
 
Drawing from their extensive research, Andy J. Merolla and Jeffrey A. Hall establish a new way to think about our relational life: as existing within “social biomes”—complex ecosystems of moments of interaction with others. Each interaction we have, no matter how unimportant or mundane it might seem, is a building block of our identities and beliefs. Consequently, the choices we make about how we interact and who we interact with—and whether we interact at all—matter more than we might know. Merolla and Hall offer a sympathetic, practical guide to our vital yet complicated social lives and propose realistic ways to embrace and enhance connection and hope…(More)”.

The Measure of Progress: Counting What Really Matters

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Diane Coyle: “The ways that statisticians and governments measure the economy were developed in the 1940s, when the urgent economic problems were entirely different from those of today. In The Measure of Progress, Diane Coyle argues that the framework underpinning today’s economic statistics is so outdated that it functions as a distorting lens, or even a set of blinkers. When policymakers rely on such an antiquated conceptual tool, how can they measure, understand, and respond with any precision to what is happening in today’s digital economy? Coyle makes the case for a new framework, one that takes into consideration current economic realities.

Coyle explains why economic statistics matter. They are essential for guiding better economic policies; they involve questions of freedom, justice, life, and death. Governments use statistics that affect people’s lives in ways large and small. The metrics for economic growth were developed when a lack of physical rather than natural capital was the binding constraint on growth, intangible value was less important, and the pressing economic policy challenge was managing demand rather than supply. Today’s challenges are different. Growth in living standards in rich economies has slowed, despite remarkable innovation, particularly in digital technologies. As a result, politics is contentious and democracy strained.

Coyle argues that to understand the current economy, we need different data collected in a different framework of categories and definitions, and she offers some suggestions about what this would entail. Only with a new approach to measurement will we be able to achieve the right kind of growth for the benefit of all…(More)”.

Public Governance and Emerging Technologies

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Jurgen Goossens, Esther Keymolen, and Antonia Stanojević: “This open access book focuses on public governance’s increasing reliance on emerging digital technologies. ‘Disruptive’ or ‘emerging’ digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, are often portrayed as highly promising, with the potential to transform established societal, economic, or governmental practices. Unsurprisingly, public actors are therefore increasingly experimenting with the application of these emerging digital technologies in public governance.

The first part of the book shows how automatization via algorithmic systems, the networked nature of distributed technologies such as blockchain, and data-driven use of AI in public governance can promote hyper-connectivity and hyper-complexity. This trend and the associated concerns have drawn societal, political, and scholarly attention to regulatory compliance considering the current and potential future uses of emerging technologies. Accordingly, the second part of the book focuses on regulatory compliance and regulatory solutions. It explores the compatibility of technology with existing regulations, existing legal tools that could be innovatively applied for the successful regulation of emerging technologies, and approaches to updating existing legislation or creating new legislation for the regulation of emerging technologies. While socio-ethical considerations on upholding public values in a digital world are at the heart of all chapters, the third part specifically focuses on public values and trust. It advances a conceptual, normative discussion, putting the spotlight on trust and other fundamental public values that should be safeguarded…(More)”

Oxford Intersections: AI in Society

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Series edited by Philipp Hacker: “…provides an interdisciplinary corpus for understanding artificial intelligence (AI) as a global phenomenon that transcends geographical and disciplinary boundaries. Edited by a consortium of experts hailing from diverse academic traditions and regions, the 11 edited and curated sections provide a holistic view of AI’s societal impact. Critically, the work goes beyond the often Eurocentric or U.S.-centric perspectives that dominate the discourse, offering nuanced analyses that encompass the implications of AI for a range of regions of the world. Taken together, the sections of this work seek to move beyond the state of the art in three specific respects. First, they venture decisively beyond existing research efforts to develop a comprehensive account and framework for the rapidly growing importance of AI in virtually all sectors of society. Going beyond a mere mapping exercise, the curated sections assess opportunities, critically discuss risks, and offer solutions to the manifold challenges AI harbors in various societal contexts, from individual labor to global business, law and governance, and interpersonal relationships. Second, the work tackles specific societal and regulatory challenges triggered by the advent of AI and, more specifically, large generative AI models and foundation models, such as ChatGPT or GPT-4, which have so far received limited attention in the literature, particularly in monographs or edited volumes. Third, the novelty of the project is underscored by its decidedly interdisciplinary perspective: each section, whether covering Conflict; Culture, Art, and Knowledge Work; Relationships; or Personhood—among others—will draw on various strands of knowledge and research, crossing disciplinary boundaries and uniting perspectives most appropriate for the context at hand…(More)”.

Differential Privacy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Open access book by  Simson L. Garfinkel: “Differential privacy (DP) is an increasingly popular, though controversial, approach to protecting personal data. DP protects confidential data by introducing carefully calibrated random numbers, called statistical noise, when the data is used. Google, Apple, and Microsoft have all integrated the technology into their software, and the US Census Bureau used DP to protect data collected in the 2020 census. In this book, Simson Garfinkel presents the underlying ideas of DP, and helps explain why DP is needed in today’s information-rich environment, why it was used as the privacy protection mechanism for the 2020 census, and why it is so controversial in some communities.

When DP is used to protect confidential data, like an advertising profile based on the web pages you have viewed with a web browser, the noise makes it impossible for someone to take that profile and reverse engineer, with absolute certainty, the underlying confidential data on which the profile was computed. The book also chronicles the history of DP and describes the key participants and its limitations. Along the way, it also presents a short history of the US Census and other approaches for data protection such as de-identification and k-anonymity…(More)”.