political science

DC: I’m not too crazy about this drone swarm…

On 06/16/2021, in 21st century, computer science, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, engineering, Europe, future, global / globalization, platforms, policy, political science, programming, robotics, society, the downsides of how people use tech, by Daniel Christian

Watch a Drone Swarm Fly Through a Fake Forest Without Crashing — from wired.com by Max Levy
Each copter doesn’t just track where the others are. It constantly predicts where they’ll go.

From DSC:
I’m not too crazy about this drone swarm…in fact, the more I thought about it, I find it quite alarming and nerve-racking. It doesn’t take much imagination to think what the militaries of the world are already doing with this kind of thing. And our son is now in the Marines. So forgive me if I’m a bit biased here…but I can’t help but wondering what the role/impact of foot soldiers will be in the next war? I hope we don’t have one.

Anway, just because we can…

21 jobs of the future: A guide to getting — and staying — employed over the next 10 years — from cognizant.com and the Center for The Future of Work

Excerpt:

WHAT THE NEXT 10 YEARS WILL BRING: NEW JOBS
In this report, we propose 21 new jobs that will emerge over the next 10 years and will become cornerstones of the future of work. In producing this report, we imagined hundreds of jobs that could emerge within the major macroeconomic, political, demographic, societal, cultural, business and technology trends observable today, e.g., growing populations, aging populations, populism, environmentalism, migration, automation, arbitrage, quantum physics, AI, biotechnology, space exploration, cybersecurity, virtual reality.

Among the jobs we considered, some seemed further out on the horizon and are not covered here: carbon farmers, 3-D printing engineers, avatar designers, cryptocurrency arbitrageurs, drone jockeys, human organ developers, teachers of English as a foreign language for robots, robot spa owners, algae farmers, autonomous fleet valets, Snapchat addiction therapists, urban vertical farmers and Hyperloop construction managers. These are jobs that younger generations may do in the further off future.

Also see:

Here are the top 10 jobs of the future — from bigthink.com by Robert Brown
Say hello to your new colleague, the Workplace Environment Architect.

Excerpt:

6. Algorithm Bias Auditor – “All online, all the time” lifestyles for work and leisure accelerated the competitive advantage derived from algorithms by digital firms everywhere. But from Brussels to Washington, given the increasing statutory scrutiny on data, it’s a near certainty that when it comes to how they’re built, verification through audits will help ensure the future workforce is also the fair workforce.

Reflections on “The metaverse: real world laws give rise to virtual world problems” [Pryor]

On 03/28/2021, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, emerging technologies, innovation, law schools, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, pace of change, policy, political science, society, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, by Daniel Christian

The metaverse: real world laws give rise to virtual world problems — from cityam.com by Gregor Pryor

Legal questions
Like many technological advances, from the birth of the internet to more modern-day phenomena such as the use of big data and artificial intelligence (AI), the metaverse will in some way challenge the legal status quo.

Whilst the growth and adoption of the metaverse will raise age-old legal questions, it will also generate a number of unique legal and regulatory obstacles that need to be overcome.

From DSC:
I’m posting this because this is another example of why we have to pick up the pace within the legal realm. Organizations like the American Bar Association (ABA) are going to have to pick up the pace big time. Society has been being impacted by a variety of emerging technologies such as these. And such changes are far from being over. Law schools need to assess their roles and responsibilities in this new world as well.

Addendum on 3/29/21:
Below are some more examples from Jason Tashea’s “The Justice Tech Download” e-newsletter:

Florida prisons buy up location data from data brokers. (Techdirt) A prison mail surveillance company keeps tabs on those on the outside, too. (VICE)
Police reform requires regulating surveillance tech. (Patch) (h/t Rebecca Williams) A police camera that never tires stirs unease at the US First Circuit Court of Appeals. (Courthouse News)
A Florida sheriff’s office was sued for using its predictive policing program to harass residents. (Techdirt)
A map of e-carceration in the US. (Media Justice) (h/t Upturn)
This is what happens when ICE asks Google for your user information. (Los Angeles Times)
Data shows the NYPD seized 55,000 phones in 2020, and it returned less than 35,000 of them. (Techdirt)
The SAFE TECH Act will make the internet less safe for sex workers. (OneZero)
A New York lawmaker wants to ban the use of armed robots by police. (Wired)
A look at the first wave of government accountability of algorithms. (AI Now Institute) The algorithmic auditing trap. (OneZero)
The (im)possibility of fairness: Different value systems require different mechanisms for fair decision making. (Association for Computing Machinery)
A new open dataset has 510 commercial legal contracts with 13,000+ labels. (Atticus Project)
JusticeText co-founder shares her experience building tech for public defenders. (Law360)

A New York Lawmaker Wants to Ban Police Use of Armed Robots [Fussell]

On 03/27/2021, in 21st century, A/V -- audio/visual, emerging technologies, future, legal reform, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, robotics, society, by Daniel Christian

A New York Lawmaker Wants to Ban Police Use of Armed Robots — from wired.com by Sidney Fussell
Officers’ use of Boston Robotics’ Digidog intensifies concerns about militarization of the police.

Excerpt:

NEW YORK CITY councilmember Ben Kallos says he “watched in horror” last month when city police responded to a hostage situation in the Bronx using Boston Dynamics’ Digidog, a remotely operated robotic dog equipped with surveillance cameras. Pictures of the Digidog went viral on Twitter, in part due to their uncanny resemblance with world-ending machines in the Netflix sci-fi series Black Mirror.

How a Discriminatory Algorithm Wrongly Accused Thousands of Families of Fraud [Geiger]

On 03/26/2021, in Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, emerging technologies, ethics, Europe, law schools, legal reform, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, policy, political science, society, sociology, the downsides of how people use tech, United States, by Daniel Christian

How a Discriminatory Algorithm Wrongly Accused Thousands of Families of Fraud — from vice.com by Gabriel Geiger; with thanks to Sam DeBrule for this resource
Dutch tax authorities used algorithms to automate an austere and punitive war on low-level fraud—the results were catastrophic.

Excerpt:

Last month, Prime Minister of the Netherlands Mark Rutte—along with his entire cabinet—resigned after a year and a half of investigations revealed that since 2013, 26,000 innocent families were wrongly accused of social benefits fraud partially due to a discriminatory algorithm.

Forced to pay back money they didn’t owe, many families were driven to financial ruin, and some were torn apart. Others were left with lasting mental health issues; people of color were disproportionately the victims.

On a more positive note, Sam DeBrule (in his Machine Learnings e-newsletter) also notes the following article:

Can artificial intelligence combat wildfires? Sonoma County tests new technology — from latimes.com by Alex Wigglesworth

Items re: AI — via Sam DeBrule’s “Machine Learnings” e-Newsletter

On 03/22/2021, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), change, emerging technologies, ethics, legislatures / government / legal, morals/values, parents/guardians, platforms, political science, privacy, society, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, United States, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
The items below are from Sam DeBrule’s Machine Learnings e-Newsletter.

#Awesome

“Sonoma County is adding artificial intelligence to its wildfire-fighting arsenal. The county has entered into an agreement with the South Korean firm Alchera to outfit its network of fire-spotting cameras with software that detects wildfire activity and then alerts authorities. The technology sifts through past and current images of terrain and searches for certain changes, such as flames burning in darkness, or a smoky haze obscuring a tree-lined hillside, according to Chris Godley, the county’s director of emergency management…The software will use feedback from humans to refine its algorithm and will eventually be able to detect fires on its own — or at least that’s what county officials hope.” – Alex Wigglesworth Learn More from Los Angeles Times >

#Not Awesome

Hacked Surveillance Camera Firm Shows Staggering Scale of Facial Recognition — from
A hacked customer list shows that facial recognition company Verkada is deployed in tens of thousands of schools, bars, stores, jails, and other businesses around the country.

Excerpt:

Hackers have broken into Verkada, a popular surveillance and facial recognition camera company, and managed to access live feeds of thousands of cameras across the world, as well as siphon a Verkada customer list. The breach shows the astonishing reach of facial recognition-enabled cameras in ordinary workplaces, bars, parking lots, schools, stores, and more.

The staggering list includes K-12 schools, seemingly private residences marked as “condos,” shopping malls, credit unions, multiple universities across America and Canada, pharmaceutical companies, marketing agencies, pubs and bars, breweries, a Salvation Army center, churches, the Professional Golfers Association, museums, a newspaper’s office, airports, and more.

Two items re: AI — and one not positive at all

On 03/19/2021, in 21st century, analytics, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, Bias | Diversity Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), computer science, data related items, Facebook / Meta Platforms, political science, programming, the downsides of how people use tech, youth, by Daniel Christian

How Facebook got addicted to spreading misinformation — from technologyreview.com by Karen Hao

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

By the time thousands of rioters stormed the US Capitol in January, organized in part on Facebook and fueled by the lies about a stolen election that had fanned out across the platform, it was clear from my conversations that the Responsible AI team had failed to make headway against misinformation and hate speech because it had never made those problems its main focus. More important, I realized, if it tried to, it would be set up for failure.

The reason is simple. Everything the company does and chooses not to do flows from a single motivation: Zuckerberg’s relentless desire for growth. Quiñonero’s AI expertise supercharged that growth. His team got pigeonholed into targeting AI bias, as I learned in my reporting, because preventing such bias helps the company avoid proposed regulation that might, if passed, hamper that growth. Facebook leadership has also repeatedly weakened or halted many initiatives meant to clean up misinformation on the platform because doing so would undermine that growth.

In other words, the Responsible AI team’s work—whatever its merits on the specific problem of tackling AI bias—is essentially irrelevant to fixing the bigger problems of misinformation, extremism, and political polarization. And it’s all of us who pay the price.

Artificial Intelligence In 2021: Five Trends You May (or May Not) Expect — from forbes.com by Nisha Talagala

Technology and Access to Justice: How Does It Work? [Bull]

On 03/17/2021, in Access to Justice (A2J), law schools, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, political science, by Daniel Christian

Technology and Access to Justice: How Does It Work? — from lawdroid.com by Robin Bull

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

At its most basic level, the term “access to justice” means the ability that a person has in accessing the legal system. This includes, and is not limited to, the ability to afford an attorney and file a lawsuit. There is only a legal right to an attorney if a person faces a criminal charge. There is no right to an attorney if someone is involved in a civil matter.
…
In the civil system, there is no constitutional right to an attorney. If a person can afford an attorney, great. Sure, there are legal aid organizations set up to provide access to justice. However, many do not have the funds, enough employees, or enough volunteers to help every person who seeks them out. Many Americans cannot afford to pay an hourly rate to have an attorney handle a civil matter. Even if they manage to come up with a retainer, they may not be able to see the matter through to completion or finish paying their attorney.

Here are a few ways that technology and access to justice work together.

Also see:

UniCourt Influencer Q&A with Sonja Ebron of Courtroom5 — from UniCourt.com

Massive issues coming up re: evictions: A potential nightmare coming down the pike.

On 12/07/2020, in Access to Justice (A2J), health, law schools, leadership, Legal operations, legal reform, legal technologies, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, society, surviving, telelegal, United States, vendors, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Logging in to get kicked out: Inside America’s virtual eviction crisis — from technologyreview.com by Eileen Guo

Excerpts:

An unprecedented, imperfect moratorium
Before the pandemic, an average of 3.6 million Americans lost their homes to evictions every year, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. By the end of 2020, this number could increase exponentially, with one report from the Aspen Institute estimating that, without further federal aid, between 30 to 40 million people may be at risk of eviction in the next several months. The financial hardship exacerbated by covid-19 has left many in a precarious situation.

.

Legal aid attorneys chart course for 2021 after spike in demand — from law360.com by Justin Wise

Excerpts: (emphasis DSC)

The coronavirus pandemic and the economic downturn it caused sparked a massive spike in demand for legal aid services from America’s most marginalized communities, leaving a field already under-resourced facing even greater strain in 2020.

At the same time, many organizations had to close their offices in the spring and significantly reduce in-person communication with clients to comply with health guidelines. It all amounted to a “pretty crushing” year in which attorneys transitioned to a primarily remote operation with new channels including a COVID-19 legal intake line, Southeast Louisiana Legal Services Executive Director Laura Tuggle said.

Tuggle said 3 in 4 of the calls on the SLLS hotline are from people seeking assistance on matters relating to housing and evictions. Overall, the group has had a 300% increase in eviction cases this year. It also had a 600% increase in unemployment assistance cases in the first few months of the pandemic.

“The most pressing legal need America faces as we enter 2021 is the tsunami of potential evictions that threaten the millions of people who have lost jobs during the pandemic,” LSC Executive Director Ronald Flagg said, pointing to a study showing that evictions can cause increases in COVID-19 cases and deaths.

A potential nightmare is coming down the pike: Massive # of evictions — which will further exacerbate the Covid19 crisis (at minimum).

DC: How can #highereducation help people reinvent themselves quickly and affordably?#learningfromthelivingclassroom https://t.co/TV5InkWHwn pic.twitter.com/5OgplxXuMO

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) December 7, 2020

Addendum on 12/9/20:

Black households face greater financial devastation due to COVID-19 shutdowns — from bigthink.com by Molly Hanson
New research spotlights how low-income Black households face greater financial distress and vulnerability as a result of the pandemic economic crisis.

Connectivity gap persists for at least 300K California students [De La Rosa]

On 10/18/2020, in dangers of the status quo, distance education, education, education reform, education technology, K-12 related, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, online learning, parents/guardians, political science, society, student-related, surviving, technologies for your home, technology (general), telecommunications, United States, youth, by Daniel Christian

Connectivity gap persists for at least 300K California students — from educationdive.com by Shawna De La Rosa

Dive Brief:

California school districts are required to provide both devices and high-speed internet connection to any student learning from home, but between 300,000 and 1 million remain disconnected, EdSource reports. A backlog of computer orders and weak broadband infrastructure in remote areas are contributing factors.
At a state assembly education committee hearing Wednesday, California education leaders, teachers and lawmakers discussed how to close the digital divide. Though most households have enough broadband to handle some video calls, many family networks don’t have the strength for multiple students to be connected at once.
Nationwide, approximately one-third of households with annual incomes under $30,000 and with children under 18 don’t have high-speed internet connection at home, impacting roughly 9.7 million students, according to a Pew Research Center report. A quarter of teens within that socio-economic bracket lack access to a computer at home.

Who needs to be discussing/debating “The Social Dilemma” movie? [Christian]

On 10/18/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, Amazon, Apple, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, business, changing business models, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, computer science, corporate / business world, curriculum, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, data related items, design, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, Facebook / Meta Platforms, future, game-changing environment, Google, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, legislatures / government / legal, marketing/social marketing, marketplaces, mathematics, media/film, Microsoft, new business models, participation, platforms, policy, political science, religion, social learning / networks, social media, society, sociology, the downsides of how people use tech, tools, trends, United States, universities, usability, user experience (UX), user interface design, vendors, by Daniel Christian

From DSC:
Who needs to be discussing/debating “The Social Dilemma” movie? Whether one agrees with the perspectives put forth therein or not, the discussion boards out there should be lighting up in the undergraduate areas of Computer Science (especially Programming), Engineering, Business, Economics, Mathematics, Statistics, Philosophy, Religion, Political Science, Sociology, and perhaps other disciplines as well.

To those starting out the relevant careers here…just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Ask yourself not whether something CAN be developed, but *whether it SHOULD be developed* and what the potential implications of a technology/invention/etc. might be. I’m not aiming to take a position here. Rather, I’m trying to promote some serious reflection for those developing our new, emerging technologies and our new products/services out there.

Radar trends to watch: October 2020 — from oreilly.com

Excerpt:

This month, the big surprise is that there’s no significant technology news about COVID. And there is more news than ever about legislation and regulation. I suspect that the legal system will be a big driver for technology over the next year. Another trend that doesn’t quite count as technology news but that definitely bears watching is that college enrollment in the US is down. Grad schools are up, 4 year colleges are down slightly; the big hit is in 2 year colleges. COVID is probably the biggest contributing factor, but regardless of the cause, this is an inauspicious trend.

From DSC:
I hesitate to post this one…but this information and the phenomenon behind it likely has impacted what’s happening in the higher education space. (Or perhaps, it’s a bit of the other way around as well.) Increasingly, higher ed is becoming out of reach for many families. Again, is this a topic for Econ classes out there? Or Poli Sci courses?

Trends in income from 1975 to 2018 — from rand.org by Carter Price and Kathryn Edwards

Excerpt:

We document the cumulative effect of four decades of income growth below the growth of per capita gross national income and estimate that aggregate income for the population below the 90th percentile over this time period would have been $2.5 trillion (67 percent) higher in 2018 had income growth since 1975 remained as equitable as it was in the first two post-War decades. From 1975 to 2018, the difference between the aggregate taxable income for those below the 90th percentile and the equitable growth counterfactual totals $47 trillion.

Also see:

‘We were shocked’: RAND study uncovers massive income shift to the top 1% — from fastcompany.com by Rick Wartzman
The median worker should be making as much as $102,000 annually—if some $2.5 trillion wasn’t being “reverse distributed” every year away from the working class.
.
The top 1% of Americans have taken $50 trillion from the bottom 90%—And that’s made the U.S. less secure — from Time.com by by Nick Hanauer and David Rolf
[From DSC: By the way, that title likely has some link bait appeal to it.]
Excerpt:
As the RAND report [whose research was funded by the Fair Work Center which co-author David Rolf is a board member of] demonstrates, a rising tide most definitely did not lift all boats. It didn’t even lift most of them, as nearly all of the benefits of growth these past 45 years were captured by those at the very top. And as the American economy grows radically unequal it is holding back economic growth itself.

Why is our death toll so high and our unemployment rate so staggeringly off the charts? Why was our nation so unprepared, and our economy so fragile? Why have we lacked the stamina and the will to contain the virus like most other advanced nations? The reason is staring us in the face: a stampede of rising inequality that has been trampling the lives and livelihoods of the vast majority of Americans, year after year after year.

For New Orleans–based firm, architecture is a tool for design justice [Colloqate Design; autodesk.com]

On 09/15/2020, in Access to Justice (A2J), architecture, creativity, culture, design, legislatures / government / legal, policy, political science, social learning / networks, society, sociology, tools, United States, vendors, by Daniel Christian

For New Orleans–based firm, architecture is a tool for design justice — from autodesk.com by Redshift Video

Excerpt:

When Bryan C. Lee Jr. was a boy, his family moved from Sicily to Trenton, NJ, and he was struck by not only the vastly different physical environment but also the ways different physical spaces affect people. It’s a concept that he explores today at Colloqate Design, an architecture and design-justice firm that focuses on civic, communal, and cultural spaces through the lens of racial justice.

Learning Ecosystems

DC: I’m not too crazy about this drone swarm…

Reflections on “The metaverse: real world laws give rise to virtual world problems” [Pryor]

A New York Lawmaker Wants to Ban Police Use of Armed Robots [Fussell]

Technology and Access to Justice: How Does It Work? [Bull]

Massive issues coming up re: evictions: A potential nightmare coming down the pike.

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