book – Page 103 – The Living Library

Social Machines: The Coming Collision of Artificial Intelligence, Social Networking, and Humanity

Curated on September 27, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by James Hendler and Alice Mulvehill: “Will your next doctor be a human being—or a machine? Will you have a choice? If you do, what should you know before making it?

This book introduces the reader to the pitfalls and promises of artificial intelligence in its modern incarnation and the growing trend of systems to “reach off the Web” into the real world. The convergence of AI, social networking, and modern computing is creating an historic inflection point in the partnership between human beings and machines with potentially profound impacts on the future not only of computing but of our world.

AI experts and researchers James Hendler and Alice Mulvehill explore the social implications of AI systems in the context of a close examination of the technologies that make them possible. The authors critically evaluate the utopian claims and dystopian counterclaims of prognosticators. Social Machines: The Coming Collision of Artificial Intelligence, Social Networking, and Humanity is your richly illustrated field guide to the future of your machine-mediated relationships with other human beings and with increasingly intelligent machines.

What you’ll learn

• What the concept of a social machine is and how the activities of non-programmers are contributing to machine intelligence• How modern artificial intelligence technologies, such as Watson, are evolving and how they process knowledge from both carefully produced information (such as Wikipedia or journal articles) and from big data collections

• The fundamentals of neuromorphic computing

• The fundamentals of knowledge graph search and linked data as well as the basic technology concepts that underlie networking applications such as Facebook and Twitter

• How the change in attitudes towards cooperative work on the Web, especially in the younger demographic, is critical to the future of Web applications…(More)”

Entrepreneurial and Innovative Practices in Public Institutions: A Quality of Life Approach

Curated on September 27, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Leitão, João and Alves, Helena: This volume discusses the importance of adopting entrepreneurial and innovation practices in the public sector, as mechanisms for detecting, dealing with and including citizens’ social needs, with a reflection on positive determination of their quality of life. It focuses on critical reflection and rethinking the articulation between the dimensions of transformation – entrepreneurship and innovation – of New Public Management (NPM). In this way the book contributes to deepening knowledge about the implications of this change in the organizational paradigm of the public sector for citizens’ quality of life, which is treated multi-dimensionally here, including citizens’ well-being, purchasing power, happiness, trust, safety, experience and satisfaction.
The volume constitutes a reference guide for decision makers, managers and policy makers engaged in the public sector who want to differentiate their performance by fostering entrepreneurial and innovative practices in the scope of public administration that can enhance citizens’ quality of life. This volume is also a reference guide for scholars, policy makers and practitioners interested on public innovation….(More)”

Impact Evaluation in Practice

Curated on September 25, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book of the World Bank Group and the Inter-American Development Bank: “The second edition of the Impact Evaluation in Practice handbook is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to impact evaluation for policymakers and development practitioners. First published in 2011, it has been used widely across the development and academic communities. The book incorporates real-world examples to present practical guidelines for designing and implementing impact evaluations. Readers will gain an understanding of impact evaluation and the best ways to use impact evaluations to design evidence-based policies and programs. The updated version covers the newest techniques for evaluating programs and includes state-of-the-art implementation advice, as well as an expanded set of examples and case studies that draw on recent development challenges. It also includes new material on research ethics and partnerships to conduct impact evaluation. The handbook is divided into four sections: Part One discusses what to evaluate and why; Part Two presents the main impact evaluation methods; Part Three addresses how to manage impact evaluations; Part Four reviews impact evaluation sampling and data collection. Case studies illustrate different applications of impact evaluations. The book links to complementary instructional material available online, including an applied case as well as questions and answers. The updated second edition will be a valuable resource for the international development community, universities, and policymakers looking to build better evidence around what works in development….(More Resources) (Download here)”

The Moral Economy: Why Good Incentives Are No Substitute for Good Citizens

Curated on September 23, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Samuel Bowles: “Why do policies and business practices that ignore the moral and generous side of human nature often fail?

Should the idea of economic man—the amoral and self-interested Homo economicus—determine how we expect people to respond to monetary rewards, punishments, and other incentives? Samuel Bowles answers with a resounding “no.” Policies that follow from this paradigm, he shows, may “crowd out” ethical and generous motives and thus backfire.

But incentives per se are not really the culprit. Bowles shows that crowding out occurs when the message conveyed by fines and rewards is that self-interest is expected, that the employer thinks the workforce is lazy, or that the citizen cannot otherwise be trusted to contribute to the public good. Using historical and recent case studies as well as behavioral experiments, Bowles shows how well-designed incentives can crowd in the civic motives on which good governance depends….(More)”

Impact: How Law Affects Behavior

Curated on September 23, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Lawrence M. Friedman: “Laws and regulations are ubiquitous, touching on many aspects of individual and corporate behavior. But under what conditions are laws and rules actually effective? A huge amount of recent work in political science, sociology, economics, criminology, law, and psychology, among other disciplines, deals with this question. But these fields rarely inform one another, leaving the state of research disjointed and disorganized. Lawrence M. Friedman finds order in this cacophony. Impact gathers recent findings into one overarching analysis and lays the groundwork for a cohesive body of work in what Friedman labels “impact studies.”

The first important factor that has a bearing on impact is communication. A rule or law has no effect if it never reaches its intended audience. The public’s fund of legal knowledge, the clarity of the law, and the presence of information brokers all influence the flow of information from lawmakers to citizens. After a law is communicated, subjects sometimes comply, sometimes resist, and sometimes adjust or evade. Three clusters of motives help shape which reaction will prevail: first, rewards and punishments; second, peer group influences; and third, issues of conscience, legitimacy, and morality. When all of these factors move in the same direction, law can have a powerful impact; when they conflict, the outcome is sometimes unpredictable….(More)”

Being a Scholar in the Digital Era

Curated on September 21, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

CONTENTS:

Introduction: Transformations;
Being a Scholar (Activist) Then and Now;
Opening Education, Linking It to Community;
Acting Up, Opening Knowledge;
Training Scholars for the Digital Era;
Measuring Scholarly Impact;
The Future of Being a Scholar….(More)”

Research Handbook on Digital Transformations

Curated on September 15, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by F. Xavier Olleros and Majlinda Zhegu: “The digital transition of the world economy is now entering a phase of broad and deep societal impact. While there is one overall transition, there are many different sectoral transformations, from health and legal services to tax reports and taxi rides, as well as a rising number of transversal trends and policy issues, from widespread precarious employment and privacy concerns to market monopoly and cybercrime. This Research Handbook offers a rich and interdisciplinary synthesis of some of the recent research on the digital transformations currently under way.

This comprehensive study contains chapters covering sectoral and transversal analyses, all of which are specially commissioned and include cutting-edge research. The contributions featured are global, spanning four continents and seven different countries, as well as interdisciplinary, including experts in economics, sociology, law, finance, urban planning and innovation management. The digital transformations discussed are fertile ground for researchers, as established laws and regulations, organizational structures, business models, value networks and workflow routines are contested and displaced by newer alternatives….(More)”

Data Love: The Seduction and Betrayal of Digital Technologies

Curated on September 14, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Roberto Simanowski: “Intelligence services, government administrations, businesses, and a growing majority of the population are hooked on the idea that big data can reveal patterns and correlations in everyday life. Initiated by software engineers and carried out through algorithms, the mining of big data has sparked a silent revolution. But algorithmic analysis and data mining are not simply byproducts of media development or the logical consequences of computation. They are the radicalization of the Enlightenment’s quest for knowledge and progress. Data Love argues that the “cold civil war” of big data is taking place not among citizens or between the citizen and government but within each of us.

Roberto Simanowski elaborates on the changes data love has brought to the human condition while exploring the entanglements of those who―out of stinginess, convenience, ignorance, narcissism, or passion―contribute to the amassing of ever more data about their lives, leading to the statistical evaluation and individual profiling of their selves. Writing from a philosophical standpoint, Simanowski illustrates the social implications of technological development and retrieves the concepts, events, and cultural artifacts of past centuries to help decode the programming of our present….(More)”

Evidence-based policy making in the social sciences: Methods that matter

Curated on September 13, 2016August 3, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Gerry Stoker and Mark Evans: “Drawing on the insights of some of the world’s leading authorities in public policy analysis, this important book offers a distinct and critical showcase of emerging forms of discovery for policy-making. Chapter by chapter this expert group of social scientists showcase their chosen method or approach, showing the context, the method’s key features and how it can be applied in practice, including the scope and limitations of its application and value to policy makers. Arguing that it is not just econometric analysis, cost benefit or surveys that can do policy work, the contributors demonstrate a range of other methods that can provide evidenced-based policy insights and how they can help facilitate progressive policy outcomes…(More)”