Sara Frueh at the National Academies: “Even among those who share the same faith or ethnic background, small differences in rituals can seem insurmountable, added Legare, relaying the example of a friend’s deep disagreement with her new husband over whether presents should be opened on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. “There was a lot of family strife surrounding something that seems pretty trivial.” Why do these small differences matter so much? Rituals help support group identity and preserve communities over time – which means they aren’t easily altered, said Legare. “Resisting change is part of the structural fabric of... (More >)
The Secret Bias Hidden in Mortgage-Approval Algorithms
An investigation by The Markup: “…has found that lenders in 2019 were more likely to deny home loans to people of color than to White people with similar financial characteristics—even when we controlled for newly available financial factors that the mortgage industry for years has said would explain racial disparities in lending. Holding 17 different factors steady in a complex statistical analysis of more than two million conventional mortgage applications for home purchases, we found that lenders were 40 percent more likely to turn down Latino applicants for loans, 50 percent more likely to deny Asian/Pacific Islander applicants, and... (More >)
The Secret to Making Democracy More Civil and Less Polarized
Essay by Matt Qvortrup: “…Too often, politicians hold referendums when they themselves are in a tight spot. As the economist John Matsusaka has written, governments often rely on referendums for issues that are “too hot to handle.” In the late 1990s, British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a referendum on a parliament for Scotland in order not to alienate voters in England, and in 2005, the French government submitted the European Constitution to voters for fear of upsetting the large segment of French voters who were skeptical of the EU. This process of elected politicians submitting unpopular questions to... (More >)
How local governments are scaring tech companies
Ben Brody at Protocol: “Congress has failed to regulate tech, so states and cities are stepping in with their own approaches to food delivery apps, AI regulation and, yes, privacy. Tech doesn’t like what it sees…. Andrew Rigie said it isn’t worth waiting around for tech regulation in Washington. “New York City is a restaurant capital of the world,” Rigie told Protocol. “We need to lead on these issues.” Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, has pushed for New York City’s new laws on food delivery apps such as Uber Eats. His group supported measures... (More >)
Looking Under the Hood of AI’s Dubious Models
Essay by Ethan Edwards: “In 2018, McKinsey Global Institute released “Notes from the AI Frontier,” a report that seeks to predict the economic impact of artificial intelligence. Looming over the report is how the changing nature of work might transform society and pose challenges for policymakers. The good news is that the experts at McKinsey think that automation will create more jobs than it eliminates, but obviously it’s not a simple question. And the answer they give rests on sophisticated econometric models that include a variety of qualifications and estimates. Such models are necessarily simplified, and even reductionistic, but... (More >)
Afghan people face an impossible choice over their digital footprint
Nighat Dad at New Scientist: “The swift progress of the Taliban in Afghanistan has been truly shocking…Though the Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told the press conference that it wouldn’t be seeking “revenge” against people who had opposed them, many Afghan people are understandably still worried. On top of this, they — including those who worked with Western forces and international NGOs, as well as foreign journalists — have been unable to leave the country, as flight capacity has been taken over by Western countries evacuating their citizens. As such, people have been attempting to move quickly to erase their... (More >)
Mathematicians are deploying algorithms to stop gerrymandering
Article by Siobhan Roberts: “The maps for US congressional and state legislative races often resemble electoral bestiaries, with bizarrely shaped districts emerging from wonky hybrids of counties, precincts, and census blocks. It’s the drawing of these maps, more than anything—more than voter suppression laws, more than voter fraud—that determines how votes translate into who gets elected. “You can take the same set of votes, with different district maps, and get very different outcomes,” says Jonathan Mattingly, a mathematician at Duke University in the purple state of North Carolina. “The question is, if the choice of maps is so important... (More >)
The Illusion of Inclusion — The “All of Us” Research Program and Indigenous Peoples’ DNA
Article by Keolu Fox: “Raw data, including digital sequence information derived from human genomes, have in recent years emerged as a top global commodity. This shift is so new that experts are still evaluating what such information is worth in a global market. In 2018, the direct-to-consumer genetic-testing company 23andMe sold access to its database containing digital sequence information from approximately 5 million people to GlaxoSmithKline for $300 million. Earlier this year, 23andMe partnered with Almirall, a Spanish drug company that is using the information to develop a new antiinflammatory drug for autoimmune disorders. This move marks the first... (More >)
Manifesto Destiny
Essay by Lidija Haas: “Manifesto is the form that eats and repeats itself. Always layered and paradoxical, it comes disguised as nakedness, directness, aggression. An artwork aspiring to be a speech act—like a threat, a promise, a joke, a spell, a dare. You can’t help but thrill to language that imagines it can get something done. You also can’t help noticing the similar demands and condemnations that ring out across the decades and the centuries—something will be swept away or conjured into being, and it must happen right this moment. While appearing to invent itself ex nihilo, the manifesto... (More >)
Generationalism is bad science
Essay by Cort W Rudolph: “Millennials – the much-maligned generation of people who, according to the Pew Research Center, were born between 1981 and 1996 – started turning 40 this year. This by itself is not very remarkable, but a couple of related facts bear consideration. In the United States, legislation that protects ‘older workers’ from discrimination applies to those aged 40 and over. There is a noteworthy irony here: a group of people who have long been branded negatively by their elders and accused of ‘killing’ cultural institutions ranging from marriage to baseball to marmalade are now considered... (More >)
