Paper by Sara Tori, Geert te Boveldt, Imre Keseru: “In recent years, scenarios have been increasingly used as a tool for helping decision makers deal with uncertainty, assess risks, enhance policy performance, expand creativity, and stimulate open discussion. In transport, scenario planning is an established method to help solve the mobility challenges of cities. In this paper, we propose a mixed-methods approach that combines cross-impact balance analysis with creative scenario planning workshops. CIB analysis was used to obtain raw scenarios that were enhanced with the output from creative workshops to obtain narratives and visuals to make the scenarios easily communicable. The approach was applied in five cities simultaneously. For each city, we developed three different scenarios for urban mobility by 2030. We found that developing the cross-impact matrix centrally and then adapting it to each city’s local context can significantly reduce the time needed for the analysis. In addition, the methodology employed can easily be adapted to the needs of local stakeholders. As it is a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods, it is easily understandable for stakeholders, allowing them to fully participate in the process. The creative outputs in the form of narratives and images have helped to create results that are easy to communicate with the stakeholders…(More)”.
Data property, data governance and Common European Data Spaces
Paper by Thomas Margoni, Charlotte Ducuing and Luca Schirru: “The Data Act proposal of February 2022 constitutes a central element of a broader and ambitious initiative of the European Commission (EC) to regulate the data economy through the erection of a new general regulatory framework for data and digital markets. The resulting framework may be represented as a model of governance between a pure market-driven model and a fully regulated approach, thereby combining elements that traditionally belong to private law (e.g., property rights, contracts) and public law (e.g., regulatory authorities, limitation of contractual freedom). This article discusses the role of (intellectual) property rights as well as of other forms of rights allocation in data legislation with particular attention to the Data Act proposal. We argue that the proposed Data Act has the potential to play a key role in the way in which data, especially privately held data, may be accessed, used, and shared. Nevertheless, it is only by looking at the whole body of data (and data related) legislation that the broader plan for a data economy can be grasped in its entirety. Additionally, the Data Act proposal may also arguably reveal the elements for a transition from a property-based to a governance-based paradigm in the EU data strategy. Whereas elements of data governance abound, the stickiness of property rights and rhetoric seem however hard to overcome. The resulting regulatory framework, at least for now, is therefore an interesting but not always perfectly coordinated mix of both. Finally, this article suggests that the Data Act Proposal may have missed the chance to properly address the issue of data holders’ power and related information asymmetries, as well as the need for coordination mechanisms…(More)”.
Building Online Public Consultation Knowledge
Graphs
Paper by William Aboucaya, Sonia Guehis and Rafael Angarita: “Online consultation platforms have improved the possibilities for citizens to have an input on public decision making. However, and especially at large scale, identification of the topics discussed and entities evoked has been identified as difficult for both citizens and platform administrators. In this paper, we leverage topic modeling, Named Entity Recognition and Linking and Semantic Textual Similarity to build a knowledge graph representing the different contributions to the République Numérique online citizen consultation in French language. The generated graph links the different proposals to topics identified in the consultation and to relevant DBpedia resources. The model proposed for representation of citizen consultations as knowledge graphs simplifies the retrieval of proposals focused on specific topics or mentioning a given entity. It also allows us to improve contextualization of important words in proposals by linking them to short definitions extracted from Wikipedia…(More)”.
Participatory Digital Futures: How digital transformation can be made good for all
Paper by Mark Findlay and Sharanya Shanmugam: “Digital transformation through the widespread use of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-assisted technology and big data usage is assumed to usher in socio-economic benefits. Notions of ‘digital readiness’ speak to the inevitability of a universalised digital transformation. But the common approach of exporting digital capacities across societies and markets—digital transformation is good for you all—is top-down and paternalist. It conjures the image of some common/average citizen or worker being able and willing to transform into a digitally competent economic unit. Such a top-down approach to digital transformation can ignore, and even underplay, important demographic differences across communities when it comes to related issues such as digital literacy, digital familiarity, digital readiness, access to technology, and consent for creating digital dependencies. These differences usually grow from structural vulnerabilities such as old age, low levels of education, and socio-economic vulnerabilities like poverty and restricted access to knowledge or technical opportunities. Above all, certain segments of a community, already disadvantaged or less able to manage change, could be further measurably disadvantaged by such a universal digital push.
In this article, through vignettes from the United Kingdom and Singapore’s experience, we highlight how digital transformation can be made more participatory for users affected by digital initiatives. In the process, we introduce the idea of Living Digital Transformation (LDT) as a more bottom-up and user-centric alternative that includes those from vulnerable communities, and therefore, can improve the benefits from digital transformation for all…(More)”.
How well do the UK government’s ‘areas of research interest’ work as boundary objects to facilitate the use of research in policymaking?
Paper by Annette Boaz and Kathryn Oliver: “Articulating the research priorities of government is one mechanism for promoting the production of relevant research to inform policy. This study focuses on the Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) produced and published by government departments in the UK. Through a qualitative study consisting of interviews with 25 researchers, civil servants, intermediaries and research funders, the authors explored the role of ARIs. Using the concept of boundary objects, the paper considers the ways in which ARIs are used and how they are supported by boundary practices and boundary workers, including through engagement opportunities. The paper addresses the following questions: What boundaries do ARIs cross, intended and otherwise? What characteristics of ARIs enable or hinder this boundary-crossing? and What resources, skills, work or conditions are required for this boundary-crossing to work well? We see the ARIs being used as a boundary object across multiple boundaries, with implications for the ways in which the ARIs are crafted and shared. In the application of ARIs in the UK policy context, we see a constant interplay between boundary objects, practices and people all operating within the confines of existing systems and processes. For example, understanding what was meant by a particular ARI sometimes involved ‘decoding’ work as part of the academic-policy engagement process. While ARIs have an important role to play they are no magic bullet. Nor do they tell the whole story of governmental research interests. Optimizing the use of research in policy making requires the galvanisation of a range of mechanisms, including ARIs…(More)”.
A Genealogy of Open
Paper by Betsy Yoon: “The term open has become a familiar part of library and education practice and discourse, with open source software being a common referent. However, the conditions surrounding the emergence of the open source movement are not well understood within librarianship. After identifying capitalism and neoliberalism as structures that shape library and open practice, this article contextualizes the term open by delineating the discursive struggle within the free software movement that led to the emergence of the open source movement. An understanding of the genealogy of open can lend clarity to many of the contradictions that have been grappled with in the literature, such as what open means, whether it supports social justice aims, and its relation to neoliberal and capitalist structures. The article concludes by inquiring into how librarianship and open can reframe practices that are typically oriented toward mitigation and survival to encompass an orientation toward life and flourishing…(More)”.
Future-proofing the city: A human rights-based approach to governing algorithmic, biometric and smart city technologies
Introduction to Special Issue by Alina Wernick, and Anna Artyushina: “While the GDPR and other EU laws seek to mitigate a range of potential harms associated with smart cities, the compliance with and enforceability of these regulations remain an issue. In addition, these proposed regulations do not sufficiently address the collective harms associated with the deployment of biometric technologies and artificial intelligence. Another relevant question is whether the initiatives put forward to secure fundamental human rights in the digital realm account for the issues brought on by the deployment of technologies in city spaces. In this special issue, we employ the smart city notion as a point of connection for interdisciplinary research on the human rights implications of the algorithmic, biometric and smart city technologies and the policy responses to them. The articles included in the special issue analyse the latest European regulations as well as soft law, and the policy frameworks that are currently at work in the regions where the GDPR does not apply…(More)”.
Making AI Less “Thirsty”: Uncovering and Addressing the Secret Water Footprint of AI Models
Paper by Shaolei Ren, Pengfei Li, Jianyi Yang, and Mohammad A. Islam: “The growing carbon footprint of artificial intelligence (AI) models, especially large ones such as GPT-3 and GPT-4, has been undergoing public scrutiny. Unfortunately, however, the equally important and enormous water footprint of AI models has remained under the radar. For example, training GPT-3 in Microsoft’s state-of-the-art U.S. data centers can directly consume 700,000 liters of clean freshwater (enough for producing 370 BMW cars or 320 Tesla electric vehicles) and the water consumption would have been tripled if training were done in Microsoft’s Asian data centers, but such information has been kept as a secret. This is extremely concerning, as freshwater scarcity has become one of the most pressing challenges shared by all of us in the wake of the rapidly growing population, depleting water resources, and aging water infrastructures. To respond to the global water challenges, AI models can, and also should, take social responsibility and lead by example by addressing their own water footprint. In this paper, we provide a principled methodology to estimate fine-grained water footprint of AI models, and also discuss the unique spatial-temporal diversities of AI models’ runtime water efficiency. Finally, we highlight the necessity of holistically addressing water footprint along with carbon footprint to enable truly sustainable AI…(More)”.
Slow-governance in smart cities: An empirical study of smart intersection implementation in four US college towns
Paper by Madelyn Rose Sanfilippo and Brett Frischmann: “Cities cannot adopt supposedly smart technological systems and protect human rights without developing appropriate data governance, because technologies are not value-neutral. This paper proposes a deliberative, slow-governance approach to smart tech in cities. Inspired by the Governing Knowledge Commons (GKC) framework and past case studies, we empirically analyse the adoption of smart intersection technologies in four US college towns to evaluate and extend knowledge commons governance approaches to address human rights concerns. Our proposal consists of a set of questions that should guide community decision-making, extending the GKC framework via an incorporation of human-rights impact assessments and a consideration of capabilities approaches to human rights. We argue that such a deliberative, slow-governance approach enables adaptation to local norms and more appropriate community governance of smart tech in cities. By asking and answering key questions throughout smart city planning, procurement, implementation and management processes, cities can respect human rights, interests and expectations…(More)”.
The Rule of Law
Paper by Cass R. Sunstein: “The concept of the rule of law is invoked for purposes that are both numerous and diverse, and that concept is often said to overlap with, or to require, an assortment of other practices and ideals, including democracy, free elections, free markets, property rights, and freedom of speech. It is best to understand the concept in a more specific way, with a commitment to seven principles: (1) clear, general, publicly accessible rules laid down in advance; (2) prospectivity rather than retroactivity; (3) conformity between law on the books and law in the world; (4) hearing rights; (5) some degree of separation between (a) law-making and law enforcement and (b) interpretation of law; (6) no unduly rapid changes in the law; and (7) no contradictions or palpable inconsistency in the law. This account of the rule of law conflicts with those offered by (among many others) Friedrich Hayek and Morton Horwitz, who conflate the idea with other, quite different ideas and practices. Of course it is true that the seven principles can be specified in different ways, broadly compatible with the goal of describing the rule of law as a distinct concept, and some of the seven principles might be understood to be more fundamental than others…(More)”.