Data Conscience

Author: Brandeis Hill Marshall
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119821207
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
DATA CONSCIENCE ALGORITHMIC S1EGE ON OUR HUM4N1TY EXPLORE HOW D4TA STRUCTURES C4N HELP OR H1NDER SOC1AL EQU1TY Data has enjoyed ‘bystander’ status as we’ve attempted to digitize responsibility and morality in tech. In fact, data’s importance should earn it a spot at the center of our thinking and strategy around building a better, more ethical world. It’s use—and misuse—lies at the heart of many of the racist, gendered, classist, and otherwise oppressive practices of modern tech. In Data Conscience: Algorithmic Siege on our Humanity, computer science and data inclusivity thought leader Dr. Brandeis Hill Marshall delivers a call to action for rebel tech leaders, who acknowledge and are prepared to address the current limitations of software development. In the book, Dr. Brandeis Hill Marshall discusses how the philosophy of “move fast and break things” is, itself, broken, and requires change. You’ll learn about the ways that discrimination rears its ugly head in the digital data space and how to address them with several known algorithms, including social network analysis, and linear regression A can’t-miss resource for junior-level to senior-level software developers who have gotten their hands dirty with at least a handful of significant software development projects, Data Conscience also provides readers with: Discussions of the importance of transparency Explorations of computational thinking in practice Strategies for encouraging accountability in tech Ways to avoid double-edged data visualization Schemes for governing data structures with law and algorithms

Mitigating Bias in Machine Learning

Author: Carlotta A. Berry
Publisher: McGraw Hill Professional
ISBN: 126492271X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
This practical guide shows, step by step, how to use machine learning to carry out actionable decisions that do not discriminate based on numerous human factors, including ethnicity and gender. The authors examine the many kinds of bias that occur in the field today and provide mitigation strategies that are ready to deploy across a wide range of technologies, applications, and industries. Edited by engineering and computing experts, Mitigating Bias in Machine Learning includes contributions from recognized scholars and professionals working across different artificial intelligence sectors. Each chapter addresses a different topic and real-world case studies are featured throughout that highlight discriminatory machine learning practices and clearly show how they were reduced. Mitigating Bias in Machine Learning addresses: Ethical and Societal Implications of Machine Learning Social Media and Health Information Dissemination Comparative Case Study of Fairness Toolkits Bias Mitigation in Hate Speech Detection Unintended Systematic Biases in Natural Language Processing Combating Bias in Large Language Models Recognizing Bias in Medical Machine Learning and AI Models Machine Learning Bias in Healthcare Achieving Systemic Equity in Socioecological Systems Community Engagement for Machine Learning

The Tyranny of Algorithms

Author: Miguel Benasayag
Publisher: Europa Editions UK
ISBN: 1787702936
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 74

Book Description
The impact of the digital world and its algorithms on human beings and society We read all sorts of things about AI, as the promise of a future happiness or as a threat capable of putting an end to humanity. While we cannot be "for" or "against" AI – it's already here, and not likely to disappear any time soon - the question we face is how to exist as human beings - individually, socially, collectively - in a world governed by algorithms. Since the dawn of humanity, technological objects have intersected with the human mind: it is we who have shaped them; but as we use them, they in turn shape our brain. With the development of new technologies, this hybridization is becoming more and more apparent, and machines now threaten to colonize us, if we use them badly. AI allows us to make many kinds of work easier, but these benefits often come at the cost of reducing a person to a set of micro-data, far removed from the human characteristics that define him. Worse yet: the whole economy is now subject to the "decisions" suggested by machines. We have entered an era of algorithmic governmentality, in which leaders have deliberately delegated their decision-making to AI. How, then, can we still talk about democracy? And consequently, how can we organize collective action, confronted by a power that is based on the supposed infallibility of machines? Benasayag gives his considered answers in this short but illuminating book, a hybrid of essay and interview.

Resilient Life

Author: Brad Evans
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745682839
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 175

Book Description
What does it mean to live dangerously? This is not just a philosophical question or an ethical call to reflect upon our own individual recklessness. It is a deeply political issue, fundamental to the new doctrine of ‘resilience’ that is becoming a key term of art for governing planetary life in the 21st Century. No longer should we think in terms of evading the possibility of traumatic experiences. Catastrophic events, we are told, are not just inevitable but learning experiences from which we have to grow and prosper, collectively and individually. Vulnerability to threat, injury and loss has to be accepted as a reality of human existence. In this original and compelling text, Brad Evans and Julian Reid explore the political and philosophical stakes of the resilience turn in security and governmental thinking. Resilience, they argue, is a neo-liberal deceit that works by disempowering endangered populations of autonomous agency. Its consequences represent a profound assault on the human subject whose meaning and sole purpose is reduced to survivability. Not only does this reveal the nihilistic qualities of a liberal project that is coming to terms with its political demise. All life now enters into lasting crises that are catastrophic unto the end.

The Uninhabitable Earth

Author: David Wallace-Wells
Publisher: Tim Duggan Books
ISBN: 052557672X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “The Uninhabitable Earth hits you like a comet, with an overflow of insanely lyrical prose about our pending Armageddon.”—Andrew Solomon, author of The Noonday Demon NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New Yorker • The New York Times Book Review • Time • NPR • The Economist • The Paris Review • Toronto Star • GQ • The Times Literary Supplement • The New York Public Library • Kirkus Reviews It is worse, much worse, than you think. If your anxiety about global warming is dominated by fears of sea-level rise, you are barely scratching the surface of what terrors are possible—food shortages, refugee emergencies, climate wars and economic devastation. An “epoch-defining book” (The Guardian) and “this generation’s Silent Spring” (The Washington Post), The Uninhabitable Earth is both a travelogue of the near future and a meditation on how that future will look to those living through it—the ways that warming promises to transform global politics, the meaning of technology and nature in the modern world, the sustainability of capitalism and the trajectory of human progress. The Uninhabitable Earth is also an impassioned call to action. For just as the world was brought to the brink of catastrophe within the span of a lifetime, the responsibility to avoid it now belongs to a single generation—today’s. LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/E.O. WILSON LITERARY SCIENCE WRITING AWARD “The Uninhabitable Earth is the most terrifying book I have ever read. Its subject is climate change, and its method is scientific, but its mode is Old Testament. The book is a meticulously documented, white-knuckled tour through the cascading catastrophes that will soon engulf our warming planet.”—Farhad Manjoo, The New York Times “Riveting. . . . Some readers will find Mr. Wallace-Wells’s outline of possible futures alarmist. He is indeed alarmed. You should be, too.”—The Economist “Potent and evocative. . . . Wallace-Wells has resolved to offer something other than the standard narrative of climate change. . . . He avoids the ‘eerily banal language of climatology’ in favor of lush, rolling prose.”—Jennifer Szalai, The New York Times “The book has potential to be this generation’s Silent Spring.”—The Washington Post “The Uninhabitable Earth, which has become a best seller, taps into the underlying emotion of the day: fear. . . . I encourage people to read this book.”—Alan Weisman, The New York Review of Books

Ethics and Technology

Author: Herman T. Tavani
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1119239753
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 405

Book Description
Ethics and Technology, 5th Edition, by Herman Tavani introduces students to issues and controversies that comprise the relatively new field of cyberethics. This text examines a wide range of cyberethics issues--from specific issues of moral responsibility that directly affect computer and information technology (IT) professionals to broader social and ethical concerns that affect each of us in our day-to-day lives. The 5th edition shows how modern day controversies created by emerging technologies can be analyzed from the perspective of standard ethical concepts and theories.

21 Lessons for the 21st Century

Author: Yuval Noah Harari
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0593132815
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

Book Description
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In Sapiens, he explored our past. In Homo Deus, he looked to our future. Now, one of the most innovative thinkers on the planet turns to the present to make sense of today’s most pressing issues. “Fascinating . . . a crucial global conversation about how to take on the problems of the twenty-first century.”—Bill Gates, The New York Times Book Review NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FINANCIAL TIMES AND PAMELA PAUL, KQED How do computers and robots change the meaning of being human? How do we deal with the epidemic of fake news? Are nations and religions still relevant? What should we teach our children? Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is a probing and visionary investigation into today’s most urgent issues as we move into the uncharted territory of the future. As technology advances faster than our understanding of it, hacking becomes a tactic of war, and the world feels more polarized than ever, Harari addresses the challenge of navigating life in the face of constant and disorienting change and raises the important questions we need to ask ourselves in order to survive. In twenty-one accessible chapters that are both provocative and profound, Harari builds on the ideas explored in his previous books, untangling political, technological, social, and existential issues and offering advice on how to prepare for a very different future from the world we now live in: How can we retain freedom of choice when Big Data is watching us? What will the future workforce look like, and how should we ready ourselves for it? How should we deal with the threat of terrorism? Why is liberal democracy in crisis? Harari’s unique ability to make sense of where we have come from and where we are going has captured the imaginations of millions of readers. Here he invites us to consider values, meaning, and personal engagement in a world full of noise and uncertainty. When we are deluged with irrelevant information, clarity is power. Presenting complex contemporary challenges clearly and accessibly, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is essential reading. “If there were such a thing as a required instruction manual for politicians and thought leaders, Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century would deserve serious consideration. In this collection of provocative essays, Harari . . . tackles a daunting array of issues, endeavoring to answer a persistent question: ‘What is happening in the world today, and what is the deep meaning of these events?’”—BookPage (top pick)

An Anthropologist on Mars

Author: Oliver Sacks
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345805887
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 465

Book Description
From the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat • Fascinating portraits of neurological disorder in which men, women, and one extraordinary child emerge as brilliantly adaptive personalities, whose conditions have not so much debilitated them as ushered them into another reality. Here are seven detailed narratives of neurological patients, including a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's syndrome unless he is operating; an artist who loses all sense of color in a car accident, but finds a new sensibility and creative power in black and white; and an autistic professor who cannot decipher the simplest social exchange between humans, but has built a career out of her intuitive understanding of animal behavior. Sacks combines the well honed mind of an academician with the verve of a true storyteller.

Automating Inequality

Author: Virginia Eubanks
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 1466885963
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
WINNER: The 2018 McGannon Center Book Prize and shortlisted for the Goddard Riverside Stephan Russo Book Prize for Social Justice The New York Times Book Review: "Riveting." Naomi Klein: "This book is downright scary." Ethan Zuckerman, MIT: "Should be required reading." Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body: "A must-read." Astra Taylor, author of The People's Platform: "The single most important book about technology you will read this year." Cory Doctorow: "Indispensable." A powerful investigative look at data-based discrimination—and how technology affects civil and human rights and economic equity The State of Indiana denies one million applications for healthcare, foodstamps and cash benefits in three years—because a new computer system interprets any mistake as “failure to cooperate.” In Los Angeles, an algorithm calculates the comparative vulnerability of tens of thousands of homeless people in order to prioritize them for an inadequate pool of housing resources. In Pittsburgh, a child welfare agency uses a statistical model to try to predict which children might be future victims of abuse or neglect. Since the dawn of the digital age, decision-making in finance, employment, politics, health and human services has undergone revolutionary change. Today, automated systems—rather than humans—control which neighborhoods get policed, which families attain needed resources, and who is investigated for fraud. While we all live under this new regime of data, the most invasive and punitive systems are aimed at the poor. In Automating Inequality, Virginia Eubanks systematically investigates the impacts of data mining, policy algorithms, and predictive risk models on poor and working-class people in America. The book is full of heart-wrenching and eye-opening stories, from a woman in Indiana whose benefits are literally cut off as she lays dying to a family in Pennsylvania in daily fear of losing their daughter because they fit a certain statistical profile. The U.S. has always used its most cutting-edge science and technology to contain, investigate, discipline and punish the destitute. Like the county poorhouse and scientific charity before them, digital tracking and automated decision-making hide poverty from the middle-class public and give the nation the ethical distance it needs to make inhumane choices: which families get food and which starve, who has housing and who remains homeless, and which families are broken up by the state. In the process, they weaken democracy and betray our most cherished national values. This deeply researched and passionate book could not be more timely.

Visual Global Politics

Author: Roland Bleiker
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317930886
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 795

Book Description
We live in a visual age. Images and visual artefacts shape international events and our understanding of them. Photographs, film and television influence how we view and approach phenomena as diverse as war, diplomacy, financial crises and election campaigns. Other visual fields, from art and cartoons to maps, monuments and videogames, frame how politics is perceived and enacted. Drones, satellites and surveillance cameras watch us around the clock and deliver images that are then put to political use. Add to this that new technologies now allow for a rapid distribution of still and moving images around the world. Digital media platforms, such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram, play an important role across the political spectrum, from terrorist recruitment drives to social justice campaigns. This book offers the first comprehensive engagement with visual global politics. Written by leading experts in numerous scholarly disciplines and presented in accessible and engaging language, Visual Global Politics is a one-stop source for students, scholars and practitioners interested in understanding the crucial and persistent role of images in today’s world.