AI governance and human rights: Resetting the relationship

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Kate Jones: “Governments and companies are already deploying AI to assist in making decisions that can have major consequences for the lives of individual citizens and societies. AI offers far-reaching benefits for human development but also presents risks. These include, among others, further division between the privileged and the unprivileged; erosion of individual freedoms through surveillance; and the replacement of independent thought and judgement with automated control.

Human rights are central to what it means to be human. They were drafted and agreed, with worldwide popular support, to define freedoms and entitlements that would allow every human being to live a life of liberty and dignity. AI, its systems and its processes have the potential to alter the human experience fundamentally. But many sets of AI governance principles produced by companies, governments, civil society and international organizations do not mention human rights at all. This is an error that requires urgent correction.

This research paper aims to dispel myths about human rights; outline the principal importance of human rights for AI governance; and recommend actions that governments, organizations, companies and individuals can take to ensure that human rights are the foundation for AI governance in future…(More)”.

Report on the Future of Conferences

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Arxiv Report by Steven Fraser and Dennis Mancl: “In 2020, virtual conferences became almost the only alternative to cancellation. Now that the pandemic is subsiding, the pros and cons of virtual conferences need to be reevaluated. In this report, we scrutinize the dynamics and economics of conferences and highlight the history of successful virtual meetings in industry. We also report on the attitudes of conference attendees from an informal survey we ran in spring 2022…(More).

Measuring the value of data and data flows

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the OECD: “Data have become a key input into the production of many goods and services. But just how important? What is the value of data – their contribution to economic growth and well-being? This report discusses different approaches to data valuation, their advantages and shortcomings and their applicability in different contexts. It argues that the value of data depends to a large extent on the data governance framework determining how they can be created, shared and used. In addition, the report provides estimates of the value of data and data flows. Its focus is on the monetary valuation of data produced by private economic actors and their recording in economic statistics. Finally, the report puts forward a draft measurement agenda for the future…(More)”.

Digital Transition Framework: An action plan for public-private collaboration

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

WEF Report: “The accelerated digital transition is unlocking economic and technology innovation, boosting growth, and enabling new forms of social engagement across the globe. Yet, the benefits from digital transformation have not been fully realized; compounded with macroeconomic and geopolitical headwinds that are forcing public-private leaders to make digital technology investment trade-offs. The Digital Transition Framework: An Action Plan for Public-Private Collaboration sets out concrete actions and leading examples to support governments achieve their digital transition goals in the face of uncertainty…(More)”.

Human-AI Teaming

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine: “Although artificial intelligence (AI) has many potential benefits, it has also been shown to suffer from a number of challenges for successful performance in complex real-world environments such as military operations, including brittleness, perceptual limitations, hidden biases, and lack of a model of causation important for understanding and predicting future events. These limitations mean that AI will remain inadequate for operating on its own in many complex and novel situations for the foreseeable future, and that AI will need to be carefully managed by humans to achieve their desired utility.

Human-AI Teaming: State-of-the-Art and Research Needs examines the factors that are relevant to the design and implementation of AI systems with respect to human operations. This report provides an overview of the state of research on human-AI teaming to determine gaps and future research priorities and explores critical human-systems integration issues for achieving optimal performance…(More)”

Filling Public Data Gaps

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Judah Axelrod, Karolina Ramos, and Rebecca Bullied: “Data are central to understanding the lived experiences of different people and communities and can serve as a powerful force for promoting racial equity. Although public data, including foundational sources for policymaking such as the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS), offer accessible information on a range of topics, challenges of timeliness, granularity, representativeness, and degrees of disaggregation can limit those data’s utility for real-time analysis. Private data—data produced by private-sector organizations either through standard business or to market as an asset for purchase—can serve as a richer, more granular, and higher-frequency supplement or alternative to public data sources. This raises questions about how well private data assets can offer race-disaggregated insights that can inform policymaking.

In this report, we explore the current landscape of public-private data sharing partnerships that address topic areas where racial equity research faces data gaps: wealth and assets, financial well-being and income, and employment and job quality. We held 20 semistructured interviews with current producers and users of private-sector data and subject matter experts in the areas of data-sharing models and ethical data usage. Our findings are divided into five key themes:

  • Incentives and disincentives, benefits, and risks to public-private data sharing
    Agreements with prestigious public partners can bolster credibility for private firms and broaden their customer base, while public partners benefit from access to real-time, granular, rich data sources. But data sharing is often time and labor intensive, and firms can be concerned with conflicting business interests or diluting the value of proprietary data assets.
  • Availability of race-disaggregated data sources
    We found no examples in our interviews of race-disaggregated data sources related to our thematic focus areas that are available externally. However, there are promising methods for data imputation, linkage, and augmentation through internal surveys.
  • Data collaboratives in practice
    Most public-private data sharing agreements we learned about are between two parties and entail free or “freemium” access. However, we found promising examples of multilateral agreements that diversify the data-sharing landscape.
  • From data champions to data stewards
    We found many examples of informal data champions who bear responsibility for relationship-building and securing data partnerships. This role has yet to mature to an institutionalized data steward within private firms we interviewed, which can make data sharing a fickle process.
  • Considerations for ethical data usage
    Data privacy and transparency about how data are accessed and used are prominent concerns among prospective data users. Interviewees also stressed the importance of not privileging existing quantitative data above qualitative insights in cases where communities have offered long-standing feedback and narratives about their own experiences facing racial inequities, and that policymakers should not use a need to collect more data as an excuse for delaying policy action.

Our research yielded several recommendations for data producers and users that engage in data sharing, and for funders seeking to advance data-sharing efforts and promote racial equity…(More)”

The Protection and Promotion of Civic Space

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

OECD Report: “The past decade has seen increasing international recognition of civic space as a cornerstone of functioning democracies, alongside efforts to promote and protect it. Countries that foster civic space are better placed to reap the many benefits of higher levels of citizen engagement, strengthened transparency and accountability, and empowered citizens and civil society. In the longer term, a vibrant civic space can help to improve government effectiveness and responsiveness, contribute to more citizen-centred policies, and boost social cohesion. This first OECD comparative report on civic space offers a baseline of data from 33 OECD Members and 19 non-Members and a nuanced overview of the different dimensions of civic space, with a focus on civic freedoms, media freedoms, civic space in the digital age, and the enabling environment for civil society. It provides an exhaustive review of legal frameworks, policies, strategies, and institutional arrangements, in addition to implementation gaps, trends and good practices. The analysis is complemented by a review of international standards and guidance, in addition to data and analysis from civil society and other stakeholders…(More)”.

Use of new data sources for measuring international migration

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

UNICE Report: “Migration and other forms of cross-border mobility are issues of high policy importance. Demands for statistics in these areas have further increased in light of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration. The statistical community continues to be challenged to capture international migration and cross-border mobility in a way that would meet the growing needs of users.

Measurement of migration and cross-border mobility relies on a variety of sources, such as population and housing censuses, household surveys and administrative records, with each of them having their own strengths and limitations. Integration of data from different sources is often seen as a way to enhance the richness of data and reduce coverage or accuracy problems. Yet, even this would often not capture all dimensions of migration and cross-border mobility.

New non-conventional data sources, such as data gathered from the use of mobile telephones, credit cards and social networks — generally known as big and social media data — could be useful for producing migration statistics when used in combination with conventional sources. Notwithstanding the challenges of accessibility, accuracy and access to these new sources, examples are emerging that highlight their potential.

In 2020 the Bureau of the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) set up a task force to review existing experience and plans for using new data sources for measuring international migration in national statistical offices and outside official statistics; analyse the material collected; and compile the examples into a reference tool.

This publication presents the results of the work of the task force, including various national experiences with big data and new data sources collected through two surveys among countries participating in the CES…(More)”.

ResearchDataGov

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

“ResearchDataGov.org is a product of the federal statistical agencies and units, created in response to the Foundations of Evidence-based Policymaking Act of 2018. The site is the single portal for discovery of restricted data in the federal statistical system. The agencies have provided detailed descriptions of each data asset. Users can search for data by topic, agency, and keywords. Questions related to the data should be directed to the owning agency, using the contact information on the page that describes the data. In late 2022, users will be able to apply for access to these data using a single-application process built into ResearchDataGov. ResearchDataGov.org is built by and hosted at ICPSR at the University of Michigan, under contract and guidance from the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics within the National Science Foundation.

The data described in ResearchDataGov.org are owned by and accessed through the agencies and units of the federal statistical system. Data access is determined by the owning or distributing agency and is limited to specific physical or virtual data enclaves. Even though all data assets are listed in a single inventory, they are not necessarily available for use in the same location(s). Multiple data assets accessed in the same location may not be able to be used together due to disclosure risk and other requirements. Please note the access modality of the data in which you are interested and seek guidance from the owning agency about whether assets can be linked or otherwise used together…(More)”.

Virtual Public Involvement: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the National Academies: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, transportation agencies’ most used public-engagement tools were virtual public meetings, social media, dedicated project websites or webpages, email blasts, and electronic surveys. As the pandemic subsides, virtual and hybrid models continue to provide opportunities and challenges.

The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program’s NCHRP Web-Only Document 349: Virtual Public Involvement: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic discusses gaps that need to be addressed so that transportation agencies can better use virtual tools and techniques to facilitate two-way communication with the public…(More)”.