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)”.

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)”

Health Data Privacy under the GDPR: Big Data Challenges and Regulatory Responses

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Maria Tzanou: “The growth of data collecting goods and services, such as ehealth and mhealth apps, smart watches, mobile fitness and dieting apps, electronic skin and ingestible tech, combined with recent technological developments such as increased capacity of data storage, artificial intelligence and smart algorithms have spawned a big data revolution that has reshaped how we understand and approach health data. Recently the COVID-19 pandemic has foregrounded a variety of data privacy issues. The collection, storage, sharing and analysis of health- related data raises major legal and ethical questions relating to privacy, data protection, profiling, discrimination, surveillance, personal autonomy and dignity.

This book examines health privacy questions in light of the GDPR and the EU’s general data privacy legal framework. The GDPR is a complex and evolving body of law that aims to deal with several technological and societal health data privacy problems, while safeguarding public health interests and addressing its internal gaps and uncertainties. The book answers a diverse range of questions including: What role can the GDPR play in regulating health surveillance and big (health) data analytics? Can it catch up with the Internet age developments? Are the solutions to the challenges posed by big health data to be found in the law? Does the GDPR provide adequate tools and mechanisms to ensure public health objectives and the effective protection of privacy? How does the GDPR deal with data that concern children’s health and academic research?

By analysing a number of diverse questions concerning big health data under the GDPR from various different perspectives, this book will appeal to those interested in privacy, data protection, big data, health sciences, information technology, the GDPR, EU and human rights law….(More)”.

An Introduction to Ethics in Robotics and AI

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Open access book by Christoph Bartneck, Christoph Lütge, Alan Wagner and Sean Welsh: “This book provides an introduction into the ethics of robots and artificial intelligence. The book was written with university students, policy makers, and professionals in mind but should be accessible for most adults. The book is meant to provide balanced and, at times, conflicting viewpoints as to the benefits and deficits of AI through the lens of ethics. As discussed in the chapters that follow, ethical questions are often not cut and dry. Nations, communities, and individuals may have unique and important perspectives on these topics that should be heard and considered. While the voices that compose this book are our own, we have attempted to represent the views of the broader AI, robotics, and ethics communities.

This book provides an introduction into the ethics of robots and artificial intelligence. The book was written with university students, policy makers, and professionals in mind but should be accessible for most adults. The book is meant to provide balanced and, at times, conflicting viewpoints as to the benefits and deficits of AI through the lens of ethics. As discussed in the chapters that follow, ethical questions are often not cut and dry. Nations, communities, and individuals may have unique and important perspectives on these topics that should be heard and considered. While the voices that compose this book are our own, we have attempted to represent the views of the broader AI, robotics, and ethics communities….(More)”.

The Normative Order of the Internet: A Theory of Rule and Regulation Online

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Open access book by Matthias C. Kettemann: “There is order on the internet, but how has this order emerged and what challenges will threaten and shape its future? This study shows how a legitimate order of norms has emerged online, through both national and international legal systems. It establishes the emergence of a normative order of the internet, an order which explains and justifies processes of online rule and regulation. This order integrates norms at three different levels (regional, national, international), of two types (privately and publicly authored), and of different character (from ius cogens to technical standards).

Matthias C. Kettemann assesses their internal coherence, their consonance with other order norms and their consistency with the order’s finality. The normative order of the internet is based on and produces a liquefied system characterized by self-learning normativity. In light of the importance of the socio-communicative online space, this is a book for anyone interested in understanding the contemporary development of the internet….(More)”.

Data Justice and COVID-19: Global Perspectives

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by edited by Linnet Taylor, Aaron Martin, Gargi Sharma and Shazade Jameson: “In early 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic swept the world and states of emergency were declared by one country after another, the global technology sector—already equipped with unprecedented wealth, power, and influence—mobilised to seize the opportunity. This collection is an account of what happened next and captures the emergent conflicts and responses around the world. The essays provide a global perspective on the implications of these developments for justice: they make it possible to compare how the intersection of state and corporate power—and the way that power is targeted and exercised—confronts, and invites resistance from, civil society in countries worldwide.

This edited volume captures the technological response to the pandemic in 33 countries, accompanied by nine thematic reflections, and reflects the unfolding of the first wave of the pandemic.

This book can be read as a guide to the landscape of technologies deployed during the pandemic and also be used to compare individual country strategies. It will prove useful as a tool for teaching and learning in various disciplines and as a reference point for activists and analysts interested in issues of data justice.

The essays interrogate these technologies and the political, legal, and regulatory structures that determine how they are applied. In doing so,the book exposes the workings of state technological power to critical assessment and contestation….(More)”

Terms of Disservice: How Silicon Valley is Destructive by Design

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Dipayan Ghosh: “Designing a new digital social contact for our technological future…High technology presents a paradox. In just a few decades, it has transformed the world, making almost limitless quantities of information instantly available to billions of people and reshaping businesses, institutions, and even entire economies. But it also has come to rule our lives, addicting many of us to the march of megapixels across electronic screens both large and small.

Despite its undeniable value, technology is exacerbating deep social and political divisions in many societies. Elections influenced by fake news and unscrupulous hidden actors, the cyber-hacking of trusted national institutions, the vacuuming of private information by Silicon Valley behemoths, ongoing threats to vital infrastructure from terrorist groups and even foreign governments—all these concerns are now part of the daily news cycle and are certain to become increasingly serious into the future.

In this new world of endless technology, how can individuals, institutions, and governments harness its positive contributions while protecting each of us, no matter who or where we are?

In this book, a former Facebook public policy adviser who went on to assist President Obama in the White House offers practical ideas for using technology to create an open and accessible world that protects all consumers and civilians. As a computer scientist turned policymaker, Dipayan Ghosh answers the biggest questions about technology facing the world today. Proving clear and understandable explanations for complex issues, Terms of Disservice will guide industry leaders, policymakers, and the general public as we think about how we ensure that the Internet works for everyone, not just Silicon Valley….(More)”.

The Ethics of Pandemics

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book edited by Meredith Celene Schwartz: “The rapid spread of COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on modern health-care systems and has given rise to a number of complex ethical issues. This collection of readings and case studies offers an overview of some of the most pressing of these issues, such as the allocation of ventilators and other scarce resources, the curtailing of standard privacy measures for the sake of public health, and the potential obligations of health-care professionals to continue operating in dangerous work environments….(More)“.