Tag: Barrons

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How to Regulate AI? Start With the Data

We live in an era of data dichotomy. On one hand, AI developers rely on large data sets to “train” their systems about the world and respond to user questions. These data troves have become increasingly valuable and visible. On the other hand, despite the import of data, U.S. policy makers don’t view data governance as a vehicle to regulate AI.

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Biden’s New AI Policy Falls Short on a Key Problem

Biden’s New AI Policy Falls Short on a Key Problem

The Biden administration’s new “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights” is simultaneously a big step forward and a disappointment. Released last week, the blueprint articulates a set of principles that could address some of the major concerns about artificial intelligence design and deployment. But policymakers will need to do more to achieve an elusive objective: trust in AI.

AI’s trust problems have been apparent for some time. In 2021, the National Institute for Standards published a paper explaining the relationship between artificial intelligence systems and the consumers and firms who use AI systems to make decisions. The AI user has to trust the AI system because of its complexity, unpredictability, and lack of moral or ethical capacity, changing the dynamic between user and system into a relationship. So if AI designers and deployers want AI to be trusted, they must encourage trustworthy behavior by the system as well as trust in the system.

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A Future Built on Data: Data Strategies, Competitive Advantage and Trust

In the twenty-first century, data became the subject of national strategy. This paper examines these visions and strategies to better understand what policy makers hope to achieve. Data is different from other inputs: it is plentiful, easy to use and can be utilized and shared by many different people without being used up. Moreover, data can be simultaneously a commercial asset and a public good. Various types of data can be analyzed to create new products and services or to mitigate complex “wicked” problems that transcend generations and nations (a public good function). However, an economy built on data analysis also brings problems — firms and governments can manipulate or misuse personal data, and in so doing undermine human autonomy and human rights. Given the complicated nature of data and its various types (for example, personal, proprietary, public, and so on), a growing number of governments have decided to outline how they see data’s role in the economy and polity. While it is too early to evaluate the effectiveness of these strategies, policy makers increasingly recognize that if they want to build their country’s future on data, they must also focus on trust.

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A New Approach to Digital Public Goods Is Gaining Steam

Data is different from other inputs. Researchers in the public and private sectors can reuse troves of data indefinitely without that data losing its value. Individuals can use the same data for multiple purposes. They can create new products or research complex problems. Hence, data is multidimensional. It can simultaneously be a commercial asset and a public good.

Firms have long relied on data to improve the efficiency and quality of goods and services. However, today market actors also utilize data to create entirely new services, such as personalized healthcare. Data-driven sectors such as social networks and artificial-intelligence services are the foundation of today’s global economy. These sectors also enabled much of the world to function during the pandemic.

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The West Can Make Russia a Trade Pariah with a Page from Moscow’s Playbook

The West Can Make Russia a Trade Pariah with a Page from Moscow’s Playbook

Policymakers around the world are searching for ways to punish Russian leaders for their aggression in Ukraine. They have generally relied on economic and financial sanctions. But sanctions are an imperfect tool. They can lead to higher prices and limited supplies of various goods and services in the home market, and sanctions may not change the target country’s behavior. A review of U.S. history illuminates an alternative approach, one that may attract the support of other nations.

The U.S. and its allies can deny most-favored-nation status to Russia, as Reps. Lloyd Doggett and Earl Blumenauer have proposed. (The U.S. uses the terminology “normal trade relations” to signify that a nation that has this status isn’t actually more favored than any other nation.) Most-favored nation status is a guiding principle of trade rules. Should the U.S. and other nations deny Russia this status, they will be free to impose tariffs on Russian exports. The cost of Russian goods will rise, making these products more expensive and gradually less desirable. Over time, Russia’s coffers will be harder to fill.

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This Threat to Democracy Is Made in America. Biden’s Summit Won’t Fix It.

This Threat to Democracy Is Made in America. Biden’s Summit Won’t Fix It. (Dreamstine, Barrons)

At the behest of the U.S., representatives of 100 nations will gather online on Thursday and Friday to examine how they can sustain democracy. The Summit for Democracy has a packed agenda but ignores a major threat: Firms in the U.S. and elsewhere use large troves of personal data to manipulate our behavior, which is directly and indirectly endangering our autonomy, human rights, and democracy. This threat to democracy was and continues to be made in America, and America’s allies know it.

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In the Data-Driven Economy, the Law of the Jungle Rules

In the Data-Driven Economy, the Law of the Jungle Rules

The vision of data control, or restricting cross-border data flows, as a means of protecting personal data is disruptive and inaccurate. Whether held by the public or private sector, societies benefit the most when large inventories of data are used, shared, and crossed with other sets of data.

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How Nations Can Build Online Trust Through Trade

In 2018, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres  argued that the world is suffering from a “trust deficit disorder.” He described a vicious circle where malicious acts in cyberspace polarize communities, reinforce tribalism, and diminish trust among states. The only way to mitigate these problems, he argued, was to encourage cooperation among countries and internet stakeholders off and online.

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The One Trade Agreement Biden Should Sign Up For Now

The One Trade Agreement Biden Should Sign Up For Now

I have seen the future of international trade, and it is called DEPA, the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement. With this trade agreement, New Zealand, Chile, and Singapore have crafted a new approach to trade policymaking focused on rules to govern cross-border data flows, facilitate data-driven economic growth, and increase online trust. In December, Canada announced it would seek to join DEPA. The U.S. should too.  DEPA is pathbreaking for several reasons. First, the participants see their relationship as a partnership; they pledge to build a digital economy that supports innovation and builds trust in their own countries and globally. Second, they drafted the agreement to demonstrate the benefits of collaboration at a time when many economies are choosing to go it alone or bilaterally because of Covid-19.

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Big Data, Big Problems as Privacy and Bias Concerns Persist

Big Data, Big Problems as Privacy and Bias Concerns Persist

Big data analytics is the secret sauce of the American polity and economy—widely utilized but poorly understood. Organizations use various typesOpens in a new window of big data analytics to make decisions, correlations, and predictions about their constituents or stakeholders. The market for data is big and growing rapidly; it’s estimatedOpens in a new window to hit $100 billion before the end of the decade. But the recipe for data analytics can at times contain a hidden ingredient: bias. Not surprisingly, there is evidenceOpens in a new window that reliance on big data analytical processes can lead to divisive, discriminatory, inequitable, and even dangerous outcomes—collective harms—for some of the people sorted into groups. That needs to change.

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