A.I. and Big Data Could Power a New War on Poverty

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Elisabeth A. Mason in The New York Times: “When it comes to artificial intelligence and jobs, the prognostications are grim. The conventional wisdom is that A.I. might soon put millions of people out of work — that it stands poised to do to clerical and white collar workers over the next two decades what mechanization did to factory workers over the past two. And that is to say nothing of the truckers and taxi drivers who will find themselves unemployed or underemployed as self-driving cars take over our roads.

But it’s time we start thinking about A.I.’s potential benefits for society as well as its drawbacks. The big-data and A.I. revolutions could also help fight poverty and promote economic stability.

Poverty, of course, is a multifaceted phenomenon. But the condition of poverty often entails one or more of these realities: a lack of income (joblessness); a lack of preparedness (education); and a dependency on government services (welfare). A.I. can address all three.

First, even as A.I. threatens to put people out of work, it can simultaneously be used to match them to good middle-class jobs that are going unfilled. Today there are millions of such jobs in the United States. This is precisely the kind of matching problem at which A.I. excels. Likewise, A.I. can predict where the job openings of tomorrow will lie, and which skills and training will be needed for them….

Second, we can bring what is known as differentiated education — based on the idea that students master skills in different ways and at different speeds — to every student in the country. A 2013 study by the National Institutes of Health found that nearly 40 percent of medical students held a strong preference for one mode of learning: Some were listeners; others were visual learners; still others learned best by doing….

Third, a concerted effort to drag education and job training and matching into the 21st century ought to remove the reliance of a substantial portion of the population on government programs designed to assist struggling Americans. With 21st-century technology, we could plausibly reduce the use of government assistance services to levels where they serve the function for which they were originally intended…(More)”.

How Cities Can Embrace Innovation Without Sacrificing Public Health and Safety

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Jennifer Bradley at Next City: “Many city governments in the U.S. and elsewhere are torn when it comes to innovation. On the one hand, constituents live in a world that increasingly demands flexibility, interaction, and iteration, and governments want to be seen as responsive to new ideas and services. On the other, the “move fast and break things” ethos of many technology companies seems wildly inappropriate when public health and safety are at stake. Cities are bound by regulatory processes developed decades ago and designed for predictability, stability, and protection—not for speed, ease, and invention. In addition, regulations have accumulated over time to respond to the urgent concerns of years or even decades ago, which might be irrelevant today.

The real work for city leaders today is to create not just new rules, but new ways of writing and adjusting regulations that better fit the dynamism and pace of change of cities themselves. Regulations are a big part of the city’s operating system, and, like an operating system, they should be data-informed, continually tweaked, and regularly refreshed to respond to bugs and new use cases.

We have recently launched a site with recommendations and case studies in four areas where technology is both pushing up against the limits of the current regulatory system and offering new tools to make enforcing and following rules easier: food safety, permitting, procurement, and transportation….(More) (Innovation Regulation site)“.

Powering Community Participation in Planning for Indianapolis’ Future

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Thomas Kingsley at the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP): “Thanks to IndyVitals – an award-winning online data tool – residents and organizations can actively contribute to continued planning to achieve Marion County’s vision for 2020. The NNIP Partner, the Polis Center at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis, leveraged their years of experience in providing actionable data through their Social Assets and Vulnerabilities Indicators (SAVI) to create this new resource for the county.

IndyVitals supports Plan 2020: the initiative of the City of Indianapolis, the Greater Indianapolis Progress Committee and others to revitalize the city’s plans and planning processes in recognition of its 2020 bicentennial. These groups decided to give neighborhood data a considerably more pivotal role in their approach than it has typically played in local planning efforts in the past.

SAVI was one of the first comprehensive online and interactive neighborhood indicators systems ever developed for any city. But IndyVitals incorporates three notable changes to past practice. First is a new configuration of neighborhood geographies for the city. Indianapolis has nearly 500 self-defined neighborhood associations registered with the City, with many overlapping boundaries. Neighborhoods defined at that level would be too small and fragmented to motivate coherent action. Accordingly, the City defined a set of 99 larger “neighborhood areas” that all actors who influence neighborhood change – community groups, public agencies, nonprofit service providers, private businesses – could understand, build their own plans around, and use as a basis for coordinating with each other to achieve progress. The City intends to use the new neighborhood areas as building blocks for revising the boundaries of its police districts, public works areas and other internal administrative units.

The second change pertains to the indicators selected and the tools developed to make use of them. A set of over 50 indicators for IndyVitals was selected to be regularly updated and monitored in the future (drawn from the literally hundreds of possible indicators that could be created with SAVI data). SAVI staff suggested a list of candidates which was then vetted and modified by an advisory committee made up of representatives of community and other stakeholder organizations. The 50 include measures that help explain the forces causing neighborhood change as well as those considered to be markers of goal achievement. They include well known indicators on population characteristics, but also a number of metrics that have powerful implications: for example, percent of families with access to a quality preschool or percent of residents employed in their own neighborhood; percent of students graduating from high school on time, neighborhood “walkability” ratings, crimes committed by minors per 1,000 population, demolitions ordered due to hazardous building conditions….

The third, and probably most important change in practice, is the type of data-informed planning and implementation process envisaged….(More)”.

A Guide to Chicago’s Array of Things Initiative

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Sean Thornton at Data-Smart City Solutions: “The 606, Chicago’s rails-to-trails project that stretches for 4.2 miles on the city’s northwest side, has been popular with residents and visitors ever since its launch last year.  The trail recently added a new art installation, Blue Sky, that will greet visitors over the next five years with an array of lights and colors. Less noticed, but no less important, will be another array on display near the trail: a sensor node from Chicago’s Array of Things initiative.

If you’re a frequent reader of all things civic tech, then you may have already come across the Array of Things (AoT).  Launched in 2016, the project, which consists of a network of sensor boxes mounted on light posts, has now begun collecting a host of real-time data on Chicago’s environmental surroundings and urban activity.   After installing a small number of sensors downtown and elsewhere in 2016, Chicago is now adding additional sensors across the city and the city’s data portal currently lists locations for all of AoT’s active and yet-to-be installed sensors.  This year, data collected from AoT will be accessible online, providing valuable information for researchers, urban planners, and the general public.

AoT’s public engagement campaign has been picking up steam as well, with a recent community event held this fall. As a non-proprietary project, AoT is being implemented as a tool to improve not just urban planning and sustainability efforts, but quality of life for residents and communities. To engage with the public, project leaders have held meetings and workshops to build relationships with residents and identify community priorities. Those priorities, which vary from community to community, could range from monitoring traffic congestion around specific intersections to addressing air quality concerns at local parks and schoolyards.

The AoT project is a leading example of how new technology—and the Internet of Things (IoT) in particular—is transforming efforts for sustainable urban growth and “smart” city planning.  AoT’s truly multi-dimensional character sets it apart from other smart city efforts: complementing environmental sensor data collection, the initiative includes educational programming, community outreach, and R&D opportunities for academics, startups, corporations, and other organizations that could stand to benefit.

Launching a project like AoT, of course, isn’t as simple as installing sensor nodes and flipping on a switch. AoT has been in the works for years, and its recent launch marks a milestone event for its developers, the City of Chicago, and smart city technologies.  AoT has frequently appeared in the press  – yet often, coverage loses sight of the many facets of this unique project. How did AoT get to where it is today?  What is the project’s significance outside of Chicago? What are AoT’s implications for cities? Consider this article as your primer for all things AoT….(More)”.

Tracking Metrics in Social 3.0

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Nancy Lim in AdWeek: “…Facebook is the world’s most popular social network, with incomparable reach and real value for marketers. However, as engagement on the channel increases, marketers are in a pickle. While they want to track and support valuable experiences on Facebook, they’re unsure if they can trust the channel’s metrics…..Marketers’ wavering trust in Facebook metrics warrants a look back at the evolution of social media itself.

At social’s advent (Social 1.0), metrics focused strictly on likes and comments. Content simply wasn’t as important as users learned to build social profiles and make the platform work for them.

Then, Social 2.0 invited brands to enter the fray. With them came the new role of content as a driver of top-line metrics.

Now, we’re in the midst of Social 3.0, where advancements in the technology have made it possible for social channels to result in real ad conversions.

When it comes to these conversions, it’s no longer all about the click. There’s been a marked shift away from social interactions of the past, which centered around intangible things like likes and engagement-based activities. Now, marketers are tasked with tracking more tangible metrics like conversions. Another way to look at this evolution is from social objectives (likes, shares, comments) to real business objectives (conversions, units sold, cost per sale)….

To thrive in Social 3.0, marketers must provide more direct channels for responses with lower barriers of entry, and do more of this work themselves.

They must also come to terms with the fact that while Facebook often feels like an owned channel, it’s first and foremost a platform designed for consumers. This means they cannot blindly put all their trust in Facebook’s metrics. Rather, marketers should be partnering with available third-party technologies to truly understand, trust and drive full value from Facebook insights.

Call tracking provides an avenue for this. Armed with call tracking software, marketers can determine which campaigns are causing Facebook users to pick up their phones. For instance, marketers can assign unique call numbers to separate Facebook campaigns to A/B test different copy and CTAs. Once they know what’s working best, they can incorporate that feedback into future campaigns.

Other analytics tools then provide a clearer picture. For example, marketers can leverage insights from Google Analytics, third-party data providers or other big analytics tools to learn more about the users that are engaging. Such a holistic perspective results in the creation of more personalized campaigns and, therefore, conversions….(More)”.

Humanitarian group uses blockchain tech to give Rohingya digital ID cards

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Techwire Asia: “A Non-Governmental Organization is using blockchain technology to provide stateless Rohingya refugees who fled Burma (Myanmar) with digital identity cards in a pilot project aimed at giving access to services like banking and education.

The first 1,000 people to benefit from the project in 2018 will be members of the diaspora in Malaysia, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia, decades-old safe havens for the Rohingya, who are the world’s biggest stateless minority.

“They are disenfranchised,” Kyri Andreou, co-founder of The Rohingya Project, which is organising the initiative, said at its launch in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday.

“They are shut out. One of the key aspects is because of the lack of identification.”

More than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims – who are denied citizenship in Buddhist-majority Burma – have fled to Bangladesh since August after attacks by insurgents triggered a response by Burma’s army and Buddhist vigilantes….

According to The Sun, Muhammad Noor said the project focuses on two aspects – identity and opportunity – in which the system will provide the first verified data on Rohingya census across the world.

Individual Rohingya, he said, shall have their ancestry authentically identified to link them directly to their original land of dispersion…(More)”.

Innovation Contests: How to Engage Citizens in Solving Urban Problems?

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Chapter by Sarah Hartmann, Agnes Mainka and Wolfgang G. Stock in Enhancing Knowledge Discovery and Innovation in the Digital Era: “Cities all over the world are challenged with problems evolving from increasing urbanity, population growth, and density. For example, one prominent issue that is addressed in many cities is mobility. To develop smart city solutions, governments are trying to introduce open innovation. They have started to open their governmental and city related data as well as awake the citizens’ awareness on urban problems through innovation contests.

Citizens are the users of the city and therefore, have a practical motivation to engage in innovation contests as for example in hackathons and app competitions. The collaboration and co-creation of civic services by means of innovation contests is a cultural development of how governments and citizens work together in an open governmental environment. A qualitative analysis of innovation contests in 24 world cities reveals this global trend. In particular, such events increase the awareness of citizens and local businesses for identifying and solving urban challenges and are helpful means to transfer the smart city idea into practicable solutions….(More)”.

Inside China’s Vast New Experiment in Social Ranking

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Mara Hvistendahl at Wired: “…During the past 30 years, by contrast, China has grown to become the world’s second largest economy without much of a functioning credit system at all. The People’s Bank of China, the country’s central banking regulator, maintains records on millions of consumers, but they often contain little or no information. Until recently, it was difficult to get a credit card with any bank other than your own. Consumers mainly used cash….

In 2013, Ant Financial executives retreated to the mountains outside Hangzhou to discuss creating a slew of new products; one of them was Zhima Credit. The executives realized that they could use the data-collecting powers of Alipay to calculate a credit score based on an individual’s activities. “It was a very natural process,” says You Xi, a Chinese business reporter who detailed this pivotal meeting in a recent book, Ant Financial. “If you have payment data, you can assess the credit of a person.” And so the tech company began the process of creating a score that would be “credit for everything in your life,” as You explains it.

Ant Financial wasn’t the only entity keen on using data to measure people’s worth. Coincidentally or not, in 2014 the Chinese government announced it was developing what it called a system of “social credit.” In 2014, the State Council, China’s governing cabinet, publicly called for the establishment of a nationwide tracking system to rate the reputations of individuals, businesses, and even government officials. The aim is for every Chinese citizen to be trailed by a file compiling data from public and private sources by 2020, and for those files to be searchable by fingerprints and other biometric characteristics. The State Council calls it a “credit system that covers the whole society.”…

In 2015 Ant Financial was one of eight tech companies granted approval from the People’s Bank of China to develop their own private credit scoring platforms. Zhima Credit appeared in the Alipay app shortly after that. The service tracks your behavior on the app to arrive at a score between 350 and 950, and offers perks and rewards to those with good scores. Zhima Credit’s algorithm considers not only whether you repay your bills but also what you buy, what degrees you hold, and the scores of your friends. Like Fair and Isaac decades earlier, Ant Financial executives talked publicly about how a data-driven approach would open up the financial system to people who had been locked out, like students and rural Chinese. For the more than 200 million Alipay users who have opted in to Zhima Credit, the sell is clear: Your data will magically open doors for you….

Often, data brokers are flat-out wrong. The data broker Acxiom, which provides some information about what it collects on a site called AboutTheData.com, has me pegged as a single woman with a high school education and a “likely Las Vegas gambler,” when in fact I’m married, have a master’s degree, and have never even bought a lottery ticket. But it is impossible to challenge these assessments, since we’re never told that they exist. I know more about Zhima Credit’s algorithm than I do about how US data brokers rate me. This is, as Pasquale points out in his book The Black Box Society, essentially a “one-way mirror.”…(More)”.

The rise of female whistleblowers

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Andrea Hickerson at the Oxford Bibliographies: “Until recently, I firmly believed whistleblowers would increasingly turn to secure, anonymizing tools and websites, like WikiLeaks, to share their data rather than take the risk of relying on a journalist to protect their identity. Now, however, WikiLeaks is implicated in aiding the election of Donald Trump, and “The Silence Breakers,” outspoken victims of sexual assault, are Time’s 2017 Person of the Year.

Not only is this moment remarkable because of the willingness of whistleblowers to come forward and show their faces, but also because women are the ones blowing the whistle. With the notable exception of Chelsea Manning who herself did not choose to be identified, the most well-known whistleblowers in modern history, arguably Daniel Ellsberg, Edward Snowden, and Jeffrey Wigand, are all men.

Research suggests key individual and organizational attributes that lend themselves to whistleblowing. On the individual level, people motivated by strong moral values or self-identity might be more likely to act. At the organizational level, individuals are more likely to report wrongdoing if they believe they will be listened to.

People who have faith in the organizations they work for are more likely to report wrongdoing internally. Those who don’t have faith look to the government, reporters, and/or hire lawyers to expose the wrongdoings.

Historically, women wouldn’t have been likely candidates to report internally becausethey haven’t been listened to or empowered in the workplace  At work they are  undervalued,underrepresented in leadership roles, and underpaid compared to male colleagues. This signals to women that their concerns will not be taken seriously or instigate change. Therefore, many choose to remain silent.

Whistleblowing comes with enormous risks, and those risks are greater for women….(More)”.

Big Data Challenge for Social Sciences: From Society and Opinion to Replications

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Symposium Paper by Dominique Boullier: “When in 2007 Savage and Burrows pointed out ‘the coming crisis of empirical methods’, they were not expecting to be so right. Their paper however became a landmark, signifying the social sciences’ reaction to the tremendous shock triggered by digital methods. As they frankly acknowledge in a more recent paper, they did not even imagine the extent to which their prediction might become true, in an age of Big Data, where sources and models have to be revised in the light of extended computing power and radically innovative mathematical approaches.They signalled not just a debate about academic methods but also a momentum for ‘commercial sociology’ in which platforms acquire the capacity to add ‘another major nail in the coffin of academic sociology claims to jurisdiction over knowledge of the social’, because ‘research methods (are) an intrinsic feature of contemporary capitalist organisations’ (Burrows and Savage, 2014, p. 2). This need for a serious account of research methods is well tuned with the claims of Social Studies of Science that should be applied to the social sciences as well.

I would like to build on these insights and principles of Burrows and Savage to propose an historical and systematic account of quantification during the last century, following in the footsteps of Alain Desrosières, and in which we see Big Data and Machine Learning as a major shift in the way social science can be performed. And since, according to Burrows and Savage (2014, p. 5), ‘the use of new data sources involves a contestation over the social itself’, I will take the risk here of identifying and defining the entities that are supposed to encapsulate the social for each kind of method: beyond the reign of ‘society’ and ‘opinion’, I will point at the emergence of the ‘replications’ that are fabricated by digital platforms but are radically different from previous entities. This is a challenge to invent not only new methods but also a new process of reflexivity for societies, made available by new stakeholders (namely, the digital platforms) which transform reflexivity into reactivity (as operational quantifiers always tend to)….(More)”.