Regulatory Technology

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by the Productivity Commission (Australia): ” Regulatory technology (‘regtech’) is the use of technology to better achieve regulatory objectives. Used well, it can support the improved targeting of regulation and reduce the costs of administration and compliance.

While regtech can improve regulatory outcomes and reduce costs, it is not a substitute for regulatory reform. Indeed, as regtech is intended to make the task of regulating easier, advances in technology heighten the onus on policy makers to ensure the need for, and design of, regulation are soundly‑based….

Leading‑edge regtech involves the use of data for predictive analytics and real time monitoring, enabling better regulatory outcomes and potentially fewer compliance burdens for businesses. But advanced regtech requires specialised resources and long development times.

Even in low‑tech applications, widespread implementation of regtech can take some years. It can require substantial investment by regulators and businesses in capacity and cultural change while (as with technology solutions generally) enumeration of the scale and timing of the benefits can be difficult.

There are four key areas where regtech solutions may be particularly beneficial:

  • where regulatory environments are particularly complex to navigate and monitor
  • where there is scope to improve risk‑based regulatory approaches, thereby targeting the compliance burden and regulator efforts
  • where technology can enable better monitoring, including by overcoming constraints related to physical presence
  • where technology can safely unlock more uses of data for regulatory compliance.

Creating and maintaining a regulatory environment that supports the realisation of regtech benefits would mean:

  • improving the consistency and structure of data and the interoperability of, and standards for, technology — these are precursors to wider regtech adoption
  • investing in the technical skills and capabilities of regulators to enable measured steps in regtech adoption
  • determining accountability for outcomes associated with regtech solutions, including with regard to privacy, data security, and responsibility for resolving disputed outcomes
  • reviewing regulation to remove technology‑specific requirements that could prevent the take‑up of beneficial regtech solutions
  • creating familiarity with the possibilities of regtech (for example, through liaison forums and trials), facilitating collaboration between regulators, regulated entities and regtech developers, and establishing safe environments to develop and test regtech solutions….(More)”.

An exploration of Augmented Collective Intelligence

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Dark Matter Laboratories: “…As with all so-called wicked problems, the climate crisis occurs at the intersection of human and natural systems, where interdependent components interact at multiple scales causing uncertainty and emergent, erratic fluctuations. Interventions in such systems can trigger disproportionate impacts in other areas due to feedback effects. On top of this, collective action problems, such as identifying and implementing climate crisis adaptation or mitigation strategies, involve trade-offs and conflicting motivations between the different decision-makers. All of this presents challenges when identifying solutions, or even agreeing on a shared definition of the problem.

As is often the case in times of crisis, collective community-led actions have been a vital part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Communities have demonstrated their capacity to mobilise efficiently in areas where the public sector has been either too slow, unable, or unwilling to intervene. Yet, the pandemic has also put into perspective the scale of response required to address the climate crisis. Despite a near-total shutdown of the global economy, annual CO2 emissions are only expected to fall by 5.6% this year, falling short of the 7.6% target required to ensure a temperature rise of no more than 1.5°C. Can AI help amplify and coordinate collective action to the scale necessary for effective climate crisis response? In this post, we explore alternative futures that leverage the significant potential of citizen groups to act at a local level in order to achieve global impact.

Applying AI to climate problems

There are various research collaborations, open challenges, and corporate-led initiatives that already exist in the field of AI and climate crisis. Climate Change AI, for instance, has identified a range of opportunity domains for a selection of machine learning (ML) methods. These applications range from electrical systems and transportation to collective decisions and education. Google.org’s Impact Challenge supports initiatives applying AI for social good, while the AI for Good platform aims to identify practical applications of AI that can be scaled for global impact. These initiatives and many others, such as Project Drawdown, have informed our research into opportunity areas for AI to augment Collective Intelligence.

Throughout the project, we have been wary that attempts to apply AI to complex problems can suffer from technological solutionism, which loses sight of the underlying issues. To try to avoid this, with Civic AI, we have focused on understanding community challenges before identifying which parts of the problem are most suited to AI’s strengths, especially as this is just one of the many tools available. Below, we explore how AI could be used to complement and enhance community-led efforts as part of inclusive civic infrastructures.

We define civic assets as the essential shared infrastructure that benefits communities such as an urban forest or a community library. We will explore their role in climate crisis mitigation and adaptation. What does a future look like in which these assets are semi-autonomous and highly participatory, fostering collaboration between people and machines?…(More) –

See also: Where and when AI and CI meet: exploring the intersection of artificial and collective intelligence towards the goal of innovating how we govern

Image for post
ACI Framework — Download pdf

Digital Government Initiative in response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Compendium, prepared by the Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government (DPIDG) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA): “…aims to capture emerging trends in digital responses of the United Nations Member States against the COVID-19 pandemic, and provide a preliminary analysis of their main features….


The initiatives listed in this compendium were submitted by Member States in response to a call for inputs launched by UN DESA/DPIDG in April/May 2020. The compendium lists selected initiatives according to major categories of action areas. While this publication does not list all initiatives submitted by Member States, the complete list can be accessed here: https://bit.ly/EGOV_COVID19_APPS .

Major groupings of action areas are:

  1. Information sharing
  2. E-participation
  3. E-health
  4. E-business
  5. Contact tracing
  6. Social distancing and virus tracking
  7. Working and learning from home
  8. Digital policy
  9. Partnerships…(More)”.

Dispatches from the Behavioral Scientists Fighting Coronavirus in the Global South

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Introduction by Neela Saldanha & Sakshi Ghai: “We are in the middle of a global pandemic, one that has infected more than 35 million people worldwide and killed over 1 million. Almost nine months after the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus a “public health emergency of international concern,” the primary strategies we have to prevent the spread of an invisible and often deadly virus are behavioral—keeping a distance, wearing masks, washing hands. No wonder behavioral science has been thrust into the spotlight. Behavioral scientists have been advising national and local governments, as well as health institutions around the world about the best ways to help people collectively adhere to new behaviors.

Although the pandemic rages globally, 7 of the 10 worst outbreaks in the world are in countries in the Global South. These countries have very different social, cultural, and economic contexts from those in the Global North. Mitigating the pandemic in these countries is not simply a matter of importing recommendations from the north. As Saugato Dutta pointed out, “advice that can seem grounded in universal human tendencies must be careful not to ignore the context in which it is applied.”

What are the elements of context that we need to attend to? What issues are behavioral scientists in Nairobi or New Delhi grappling with as they tackle the virus? What can we learn from the interventions deployed in Brazil or in the Philippines? And how can these lessons inspire the rest of the world?

We thought the best way to understand these questions was simply to ask behavioral scientists in those countries. And so, in this special collection, we have curated dispatches from behavioral scientists in Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America to learn what’s different about tackling coronavirus.

Our goal is to learn from the work they have done, understand the unique challenges they face, and get their view on what behavioral science needs to focus on to benefit the 80 percent of the world population that lives in these countries. We also hope that this collection will spark ideas and seed collaborations among behavioral scientists in the Global South and North alike. The current situation demands it….(More)”.

Conducting City Diplomacy: A Survey of International Engagement in 47 Cities

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Anna Kosovac, Kris Hartley, Michele Acuto, and Darcy Gunning: “The impact of global challenges such as climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic manifests most acutely in urban settings, rendering cities essential players on the global stage.

In the 2018 report Toward City Diplomacy, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs presented findings from a survey of 27 cities on the capacity of local governments around the world to network internationally—and the perceived barriers to that engagement. The report found that cities “need to invest in resources, expertise, and capacity to manage their relationships and responsibilities to conduct city diplomacy effectively.”

In our new survey of 47 cities, we find that advice to still ring true. City officials broadly recognize the importance of engaging internationally but lack the necessary formal diplomacy training and resources for conducting that engagement to maximum effect. Nevertheless, cities maintain a strong commitment to global agendas, and international frameworks are increasingly influential in municipal affairs. For example, more than half of survey respondents said they track their city’s performance against the metrics of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Furthermore, we found that cities and their leaders are confident in their capacity to tackle global challenges. For instance, the majority of survey respondents said that city governments have greater potential for impact on climate change mitigation than their national government counterparts do, especially when acting collaboratively through city networks and multilateral urban programs.

The individual stories of five cities whose officials participated in the study offer lessons for a variety of challenges and approaches to city diplomacy. Based on the survey results, we discuss the three primary obstacles cities must overcome in order to strengthen the role of city diplomacy globally: inadequate funding and resources for international engagement, insufficient training in city diplomacy, and the failure of national and multilateral bodies to fully recognize and formalize city engagement in diplomacy.

We conclude with a framework for ensuring that city-diplomacy efforts are systematic and institutionalized rather than reliant on the personalities and connections of powerful city leaders. This capacity-building strategy can help cities leverage international coordination, information sharing, and intersectoral collaboration to address the complex and interconnected problems that will characterize the 21st century….(More)”.

Investigation of Competition in Digital Markets

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Press Release: “The House Judiciary Committee’s Antitrust Subcommittee today released the findings of its more than 16-month long investigation into the state of competition in the digital economy, especially the challenges presented by the dominance of Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook and their business practices.

The report, entitled Investigation of Competition in the Digital Marketplace: Majority Staff Report and Recommendations, totals more than 400 pages, marking the culmination of an investigation that included seven congressional hearings, the production of nearly 1.3 million internal documents and communications, submissions from 38 antitrust experts, and interviews with more than 240 market participants, former employees of the investigated platforms, and other individuals. It can be downloaded by clicking here.

“As they exist today, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook each possess significant market power over large swaths of our economy. In recent years, each company has expanded and exploited their power of the marketplace in anticompetitive ways,” said Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (NY-10) and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David N. Cicilline (RI-01) in a joint statement. “Our investigation leaves no doubt that there is a clear and compelling need for Congress and the antitrust enforcement agencies to take action that restores competition, improves innovation, and safeguards our democracy. This Report outlines a roadmap for achieving that goal.”

After outlining the challenges presented due to the market domination of Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook, the report walks through a series of possible remedies to (1) restore competition in the digital economy, (2) strengthen the antitrust laws, and (3) reinvigorate antitrust enforcement.

The slate of recommendations include:

  • Structural separations to prohibit platforms from operating in lines of business that depend on or interoperate with the platform;
  • Prohibiting platforms from engaging in self-preferencing;
  • Requiring platforms to make its services compatible with competing networks to allow for interoperability and data portability;
  • Mandating that platforms provide due process before taking action against market participants;
  • Establishing a standard to proscribe strategic acquisitions that reduce competition;
  • Improvements to the Clayton Act, the Sherman Act, and the Federal Trade Commission Act, to bring these laws into line with the challenges of the digital economy;
  • Eliminating anticompetitive forced arbitration clauses;
  • Strengthening the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice;
  • And promoting greater transparency and democratization of the antitrust agencies….(More)”.

Building the World We Deserve: A New Framework for Infrastructure

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Introductory letter to a new whitepaper published by Siegel Family Endowment that outlines a new framework for understanding and funding infrastructure: “This story begins, as many set in New York City do, with the subway. As transportation enthusiasts, we’re fascinated by trains, especially the remarkable system that runs above and below the city’s streets. It was the discovery of this shared passion for understanding how our subway system works that got us talking about infrastructure a few years ago.

Infrastructure, in the most traditional sense, brings to mind physical constructions: city streets, power lines, the pipes that carry water into your home. But what about all the other things that make society function? Having seen the decline in investment in the country’s physical infrastructure, and aware of the many ways the digital world is upending our definition of the term, we began exploring how Siegel Family Endowment could play a role in the future of infrastructure.

Over the past two years of research and conversations with partners across the field, we’ve realized that our nation’s infrastructure is due for a reset. Hearing the term should evoke a different image: an interconnected web of assets, seen and unseen, that make up the foundation upon which the complicated machinery of modern society operates. It’s inherently multidimensional.

In 2020, the United States has reckoned with a health pandemic and a watershed moment in the fight for racial equity. These challenges highlight how relevant it is to reconsider what society deems the most critical, foundational assets for its citizens—and to ensure they have access to those assets.

Funding infrastructure is often considered the responsibility of government agencies. Yet many of our peers in philanthropy have made important investments in the field. These include working with local governments to fund research, promote novel forms of public-private partnership, and, ultimately, better serve citizens. And if infrastructure is viewed through the broader lens we argue for in this paper, it becomes clear just how much philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and private entities are investing in our digital and social ecosystems.

We believe that we can do more—and better—if we commit as a country to adopting some of the principles outlined in this paper. However, we also consider this the beginning of a conversation. The time for us to think bigger and bolder about infrastructure is here. Our challenge now is to design it so that more people may thrive….(More)”.

AI Localism

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Today, The GovLab is  excited to launch a new platform which seeks to monitor, analyze and guide how AI is being governed in cities around the world: AI Localism. 

AI Localism refers to the actions taken by local decision-makers to address the use of AI within a city or community.  AI Localism has often emerged because of gaps left by incomplete state, national or global governance frameworks.

“AI Localism offers both immediacy and proximity. Because it is managed within tightly defined geographic regions, it affords policymakers a better understanding of the tradeoffs involved. By calibrating algorithms and AI policies for local conditions, policymakers have a better chance of creating positive feedback loops that will result in greater effectiveness and accountability.”

The initial AI Localism projects include:

The Ethics and Practice of AI Localism at a Time of Covid-19 and Beyond – In collaboration with the TUM School of Governance and University of Melbourne The GovLab will conduct a comparative review of current practices worldwide to gain a better understanding of successful AI Localism in the context of COVID-19 as to inform and guide local leaders and city officials towards best practices.

Responsible AI at the Local Level – Together with the NYU Center Responsible AI, The GovLab will seek to develop an interactive repository and a set of training modules of Responsible AI approaches at the local level. 

Join us as we seek to understand and develop new forms of governance to guide local leaders towards responsible AI implementation or share any effort you are working on to establishing responsible AI at the local level by visiting: http://ailocalism.org

Essential Requirements for Establishing and Operating Data Trusts

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by P Alison Paprica et al: “Increasingly, the label “data trust” is being applied to repeatable mechanisms or approaches to sharing data in a timely, fair, safe and equitable way. However, there is a gap in terms of practical guidance about how to establish and operate a data trust.

In December 2019, the Canadian Institute for Health Information and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence convened a working meeting of 19 people representing 15 Canadian organizations/initiatives involved in data sharing, most of which focus on public sector health data. The objective was to identify essential requirements for the establishment and operation of data trusts. Preliminary findings were presented during the meeting then refined as participants and co-authors identified relevant literature and contributed to this manuscript.

Twelve (12) minimum specification requirements (“min specs”) for data trusts were identified. The foundational min spec is that data trusts must meet all legal requirements, including legal authority to collect, hold or share data. In addition, there was agreement that data trusts must have (i) an accountable governing body which ensures the data trust advances its stated purpose and is transparent, (ii) comprehensive data management including responsible parties and clear processes for the collection, storage, access, disclosure and use of data, (iii) training and accountability requirements for all data users and (iv) ongoing public and stakeholder engagement.

Based on a review of the literature and advice from participants from 15 Canadian organizations/initiatives, practical guidance in the form of twelve min specs for data trusts were agreed on. Public engagement and continued exchange of insights and experience is recommended on this evolving topic…(More)”.

Science and Scientists Held in High Esteem Across Global Publics

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Pew Research: “As publics around the world look to scientists and the research and development process to bring new treatments and preventive strategies for the novel coronavirus, a new international survey finds scientists and their research are widely viewed in a positive light across global publics, and large majorities believe government investments in scientific research yield benefits for society.

Chart shows most value government investment in scientific research, being a world leader in science

Still, the wide-ranging survey, conducted before the COVID-19 outbreak reached pandemic proportions, reveals ambivalence about certain scientific developments – in areas such as artificial intelligence and genetically modified foods – often exists alongside high trust for scientists generally and positive views in other areas such as space exploration….

Scientists as a group are highly regarded, compared with other prominent groups and institutions in society. In all publics, majorities have at least some trust in scientists to do what is right. A median of 36% have “a lot” of trust in scientists, the same share who say this about the military, and much higher than the shares who say this about business leaders, the national government and the news media.

Still, an appreciation for practical experience, more so than expertise, in general, runs deep across publics. A median of 66% say it’s better to rely on people with practical experience to solve pressing problems, while a median of 28% say it’s better to rely on people who are considered experts about the problems, even if they don’t have much practical experience….(More)”.