Volume 23, Issue 3-4, November - December 2024, Page 245-250.

Volume 23, Issue 3-4, November - December 2024, Page 251-263.

Probabilistic predictions of future risk govern much of society: healthcare, genetics, social media, national security, and finance. Both policy-makers and private companies are increasingly working to design institutional structures that seek to manage risk by controlling the behavior of citizens and consumers, using new technologies of predictive control that comb through past data to predict and shape future action. These predictions not only control social institutions but also shape individual character and forms of practical reason. Risk-based decision theory shifts people's (...) relationships to the future through knowledge of possible dangers and foregone opportunities, thus inspiring anxious solicitude and deceptive hopes for total security. This book uses virtue ethics to analyze these problems and to suggest ways to enjoy these technologies' positive benefits while constraining their dangerous aspects through a better understanding of practical reasoning and a theological analysis of our responsibility for future risks. (shrink)

There is an abundance of enthusiasm and optimism about how governments at all levels can make use of big data, algorithms and artificial intelligence. There is also growing concern about the risks that come with these new systems. This article makes the case for greater government transparency and accountability about uses of big data through a Government of Canada qualitative research case study. Adapting a method from critical cartographers, I employ counter-mapping to map government big data practices and internal discussions (...) of risk and challenge. I do so by drawing on interviews and freedom of information requests. The analysis reveals that there are more concerns and risks than often publicly discussed and that there are significant areas of silence that need greater attention. The article underlines the need for our democratic systems to respond to our new datafied contexts by ensuring that our institutions make changes to better protect citizen rights, uphold democratic principles and ensure means for citizen intervention. (shrink)

There is a growing sense of unease around algorithmic modes of governance ('algocracies') and their impact on freedom. Contrary to the emancipatory utopianism of digital enthusiasts, many now fear that the rise of algocracies will undermine our freedom. Nevertheless, there has been some struggle to explain exactly how this will happen. This chapter tries to address the shortcomings in the existing discussion by arguing for a broader conception/understanding of freedom as well as a broader conception/understanding of algocracy. Broadening (...) the focus in this way enables us to see how algorithmic governance can be both emancipatory and enslaving, and provides a framework for future development and activism around the creation of this technology. (shrink)

We are living in an algorithmic age where mathematics and computer science are coming together in powerful new ways to influence, shape and guide our behaviour and the governance of our societies. As these algorithmic governance structures proliferate, it is vital that we ensure their effectiveness and legitimacy. That is, we need to ensure that they are an effective means for achieving a legitimate policy goal that are also procedurally fair, open and unbiased. But how can (...) we ensure that algorithmic governance structures are both? This article shares the results of a collective intelligence workshop that addressed exactly this question. The workshop brought together a multidisciplinary group of scholars to consider barriers to legitimate and effective algorithmic governance and the research methods needed to address the nature and impact of specific barriers. An interactive management workshop technique was used to harness the collective intelligence of this multidisciplinary group. This method enabled participants to produce a framework and research agenda for those who are concerned about algorithmic governance. We outline this research agenda below, providing a detailed map of key research themes, questions and methods that our workshop felt ought to be pursued. This builds upon existing work on research agendas for critical algorithm studies in a unique way through the method of collective intelligence. (shrink)

A sympathetic examination of the failure of anti-corruption efforts in contemporary Indonesia. Combining ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Kupang with an acute historical sensibility, Sylvia Tidey shows how good governance initiatives paradoxically perpetuate civil service corruption while also facilitating the emergence of new forms of it. Importing critical insights from the anthropology of ethics to the burgeoning anthropology of corruption, Tidey exposes enduring developmentalist fallacies that treat corruption as endemic to non-Western subjects. In practice, it is often indistinguishable (...) from the ethics of care and exchange, as Indonesian civil servants make worthwhile lives for themselves and their families. This book will be a vital text for anthropologists and other social scientists, particularly scholars of global studies, development studies, and Southeast Asia. (shrink)

Crisis means “decisive moment,” a dangerous time when action must be taken to avoid a complete disaster. In the digital age, the influx of information is extremely rapid. Many people lack the wisdom and prudence to process data correctly and to take timely moral decisions. Too much information is driving people crazy as increase in knowledge goes with an upsurge in crime rate, particularly cybercrime. This historic period is an era of multiple crises, especially crisis of human values, particularly (...) moral ones. What is so special about the crisis of this age? Why does increase in knowledge not correspond to a rise in civility and economic power for all? Is knowledge no longer empowering? Can humans co-exist in tranquility without moral values? This paper will critically reflect on the concerns raised, the challenges and prospects of the digital age, ask seminal questions and proffer invaluable solutions. And also assert the functional role of philosophy, which is needed in order to stem the moral and social crises of the information age. (shrink)

People increasingly live online, sharing publicly what might have once seemed private, but at the same time are enraged by extremes of government surveillance and the corresponding invasion into our private lives. In this enlightening work, Adam Henschke re-examines privacy and property in the age of surveillance in order to understand not only the importance of these social conventions, but also their moral relevance. By analyzing identity and information, and presenting a case for a relation between the two, he explains (...) the moral importance of virtual identities and offers an ethically robust solution to design surveillance technologies. This book should be read by anyone interested in surveillance technology, new information technology more generally, and social concepts like privacy and property. (shrink)

Many actors mobilize the cognitive, legal and technical tool-box of data protection when they discuss and address controversial issues such as digital mass surveillance. Yet, critical approaches to the digital only barely explore the politics of data protection in relation to data-driven governance. Building on governmentality studies and Actor-Network-Theory, this article analyses the potential and limits of using data protection to critique the ‘digital age’. Using the conceptual tool of dispositifs, it sketches an analytics of data protection and the (...) emergence of its configuration as ‘data protection by design and by default’. This exploration reminds us that governing through data implies, first and foremost, governing digital data. (shrink)

In today's age of restrictionism, a growing number of countries are closing their gates of admission to most categories of would-be immigrants with one important exception. Governments increasingly seek to lure and attract “high value” migrants, especially those with access to large sums of capital. These individuals are offered golden visa programs that lead to fast-tracked naturalization in exchange for a hefty investment, in some cases without inhabiting or even setting foot in the passport-issuing country to which they now officially (...) belong. In the U.S. context, the contrast between the “Dreamers” and “Parachuters” helps to draw out this distinction between civic ties and credit lines as competing bases for membership acquisition. Drawing attention to these seldom-discussed citizenship-for-sale practices, this essay highlights their global surge and critically evaluates the legal, normative, and distributional quandaries they raise. I further argue that purchased membership goods cannot replicate or substitute the meaningful links to a political community that make citizenship valuable and worth upholding in the first place. (shrink)

This essay identifies foundational questions, all metaphysical in character, which must be answered before the enterprise of epistemology proper can begin to prosper, and in the process draws attention to fundamental conflicts between the demands of epistemology and the demands of prudence. It concludes that knowledge is not, as such, a directive of prudence, and thus that the enterprise of knowledge does not fall under the category of what is practically required.

Surveillance is essential for communicable disease prevention and control. Traditional notification of demographic and clinical information, about individuals with selected infectious diseases, allows appropriate public health action and is protected by public health and privacy legislation, but is slow and insensitive. Big data–based electronic surveillance, by commercial bodies and government agencies, which draws on a plethora of internet- and mobile device–based sources, has been widely accepted, if not universally welcomed. Similar anonymous digital sources also contain syndromic information, which can be (...) analysed, using customised algorithms, to rapidly predict infectious disease outbreaks, but the data are nonspecific and predictions sometimes misleading. However, public health authorities could use these online sources, in combination with de-identified personal health data, to provide more accurate and earlier warning of infectious disease events—including exotic or emerging infections—even before the cause is confirmed, and allow more timely public health intervention. Achieving optimal benefits would require access to selected data from personal electronic health and laboratory records and the potential to re-identify individuals found to be involved in outbreaks, to ensure appropriate care and infection control. Despite existing widespread digital surveillance and major potential community benefits of extending its use to communicable disease control, there is considerable public disquiet about allowing public health authorities access to personal health data. Informed public discussion, greater transparency and an ethical framework will be essential to build public trust in the use of new technology for communicable disease control. (shrink)

Raymond Aron and his Dialogues in an Age of Ideologies examines the thought and rhetoric of the most interesting thinker of the twentieth century of whom no one has heard. This book investigates Raymond Aron's conversations on politics during the Cold War with several of his more well-known interlocutors including Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Hayek, and Charles de Gaulle. Through exploring these dialogues on the subjects of Marxism, freedom, and nationalism, we see the prudence of Aron's politics of understanding as (...) well as the emphasis he places on and virtue he demonstrates in public discourse. Through his dialogues, Aron shows us not only how to think politically but also how to engage in constructive public debate. He stands as a model for us to emulate in our own age of ideologies. (shrink)

Democracy and tragedy captured a delicate poise in ancient Athens. While many today perceive democracy as a finite, unquestionable and almost procedural form of governance that glorifies equality and liberty for their own sake, the Athenians saw it as so much more. Beyond the burgeoning equality and liberty, which were but fronts for a deeper goal, finitude, unimpeachability and procedural norms were constantly contradicted by boundlessness, subversion and disarray. In such a world, where certainty and immortality were luxuries beyond (...) the reach of humankind, tragedy gave comfort and inspired greatness. Before the disciplinary segregation and the delimiting of the poetic and artistic, tragic art dramatized the paradox of existence in a most political manner. The purpose of this paper is to explicitly highlight the crucial links that existed between democracy and tragedy during their formative years in ancient Athens. What was it about democracy that necessarily incited and depended upon the ascendency of tragedy during the time of the Athenian city-state? And why and how did a peculiar institution such as Athenian tragedy play so central a role in the democratic polis of Athens? (shrink)

Algorithms are probably the most sophisticated tools that men have had at their disposal since the beginnings of human history. They have transformed science, industry, society. They upset the concepts of work, property, government, private life, even humanity. Going easily from one extreme to the other, we rejoice that they make life easier for us, but fear that they will enslave us. To get beyond this vision of good vs evil, this book takes a new look at our time, the (...) Age of Algorithms. Creations of the human spirit, algorithms are what we made them. And they will be what we want them to be: it's up to us to choose the world we want to live in. (shrink)

We live in an age defined in large part by various facets of neoliberalism. In particular, the market world has impinged on virtually every aspect of food and agriculture. Moreover, most nation-states and many international governance bodies incorporate aspects of neoliberal perspectives. Multi-stakeholder initiatives, with their own standards, certifications, and accreditations are evidence of both the continuing hegemony of neoliberalism as well as various responses to it. Importantly, to date even attempts to limit neoliberal hegemony through MSIs have been (...) largely within the parameters established by those same neoliberal agendas. However, neoliberalism is itself in crisis as a result of climate change, the continuing financial crisis, and rising food prices. The founding myths of neoliberalism are still widely held, having the effect of closing off alternative paths to the future. Yet, this need not be the case. Alternatives to the current MSIs that promote justice, democracy, and equality can still be constructed. (shrink)

Aristotle listed moderation as one of the moral virtues. He also defined virtue as the mean between extremes, implying that moderation plays a vital role in all forms of moral excellence. But moderation's protean character—its vague and ill-defined omnipresence in judgment and action—makes it exceedingly difficult to grasp theoretically. At the same time, moderation seems to be the foundation of many contemporary democratic political regimes, because the competition between parties cannot properly function without compromise and bargaining. The success of representative (...) government and its institutions depends to a great extent on the virtue of moderation, yet the latter persists in being absent from both the conceptual discourse of many political philosophers and the campaign speeches of politicians fearful of losing elections if they are perceived as moderates. Aurelian Craiutu aims to resolve this paradox. Examining the writings of prominent twentieth-century thinkers such as Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, Norberto Bobbio, Michael Oakeshott, and Adam Michnik, he addresses the following questions: What does it mean to be a moderate voice in political and public life? What are the virtues and limits of moderation? Can moderation be the foundation for a successful platform or party? Though critics maintain that moderation is merely a matter of background and personal temperament, Craiutu finds several basic norms that have consistently appeared in different national and political contexts. The authors studied in this book defended pluralism, of ideas, interests, and social forces, and sought to achieve a sound balance between them through political trimming. They shared a preoccupation with political evil and human dignity, but refused to see the world in Manichaean terms that divide it neatly into the forces of light and those of darkness. Faces of Moderation argues that moderation remains crucial for today's encounters with new forms of extremism and fundamentalism across the world. (shrink)

As government pressure on major technology companies builds, both firms and legislators are searching for technical solutions to difficult platform governance puzzles such as hate speech and misinformation. Automated hash-matching and predictive machine learning tools – what we define here as algorithmic moderation systems – are increasingly being deployed to conduct content moderation at scale by major platforms for user-generated content such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. This article provides an accessible technical primer on how algorithmic moderation (...) works; examines some of the existing automated tools used by major platforms to handle copyright infringement, terrorism and toxic speech; and identifies key political and ethical issues for these systems as the reliance on them grows. Recent events suggest that algorithmic moderation has become necessary to manage growing public expectations for increased platform responsibility, safety and security on the global stage; however, as we demonstrate, these systems remain opaque, unaccountable and poorly understood. Despite the potential promise of algorithms or ‘AI’, we show that even ‘well optimized’ moderation systems could exacerbate, rather than relieve, many existing problems with content policy as enacted by platforms for three main reasons: automated moderation threatens to further increase opacity, making a famously non-transparent set of practices even more difficult to understand or audit, further complicate outstanding issues of fairness and justice in large-scale sociotechnical systems and re-obscure the fundamentally political nature of speech decisions being executed at scale. (shrink)

Hallelujah! God Bless America! No one has these prices—Only Daniela High Fashion Dresses. High class merchandise at low low prices. 649 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10022. Business card of a Manhattan dress shop. By associating welfare provisions and other (selected) government interventions with socialism/communism and conversely the free enterprise system with loyalty, patriotism, the American Dream, the American way of life, the propagandists are doing no more than manipulating the appropriate Satanic and Sacred symbols. A. Carey,Taking the Risk Out (...) of Democracy. (shrink)

Science and technology policy is both faced by unprecedented challenges and itself undergoing seismic shifts. First, policy is increasingly demanding of science that it fixes a set of epochal and global crises. On the other hand, practices of scientific research are changing rapidly regarding geographical dispersion, the institutions and identities of those involved and its forms of knowledge production and circulation. Furthermore, these changes are accelerated by the current upheavals in public funding of research, higher education and technology development in (...) the wake of the economic crisis. The paper outlines an agenda for science & technology policy studies in terms of a research programme of a ‘cultural political economy of research and innovation’ (CPERI). First, the implications of the overlapping crises for science policy analysis are discussed. Secondly, three rough constellations of contemporary approaches to science policy are critically compared, namely: a techno-statist Keynesian governance; a neoliberal marketplace of ideas; and co-productionist enabling of democratic debate. CPERI is then introduced, showing how it builds on the strengths of co-production while also specifically targeting two major weaknesses that are of heightened importance in an age of multiple crises, namely neglect of political economy and the concept of power. (shrink)

In recent years, 'nudge units' or 'behavioral insights teams' have been created in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and other nations. All over the world, public officials are using the behavioral sciences to protect the environment, promote employment and economic growth, reduce poverty, and increase national security. In this book, Cass R. Sunstein, the eminent legal scholar and best-selling co-author of Nudge, breaks new ground with a deep yet highly readable investigation into the ethical issues surrounding nudges, choice (...) architecture, and mandates, addressing such issues as welfare, autonomy, self-government, dignity, manipulation, and the constraints and responsibilities of an ethical state. Complementing the ethical discussion, The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science contains a wealth of new data on people's attitudes towards a broad range of nudges, choice architecture, and mandates. (shrink)

Part of understanding the meaning and power of algorithms means asking what new demands they might make of ethical frameworks, and how they might be held accountable to ethical standards. I develop a definition of networked information algorithms as assemblages of institutionally situated code, practices, and norms with the power to create, sustain, and signify relationships among people and data through minimally observable, semiautonomous action. Starting from Merrill’s prompt to see ethics as the study of “what we ought to do,” (...) I examine ethical dimensions of contemporary NIAs. Specifically, in an effort to sketch an empirically grounded, pragmatic ethics of algorithms, I trace an algorithmic assemblage’s power to convene constituents, suggest actions based on perceived similarity and probability, and govern the timing and timeframes of ethical action. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to cast light upon the moral vision—the vision of what is good and what is obligatory —that governs many if not most of the motion pictures produced in the United States in recent years. I especially have in mind productions such as Pleasantville, Cider House Rules , and American Beauty , and will give special attention to these three movies in what follows. But the phenomenon in question extends far beyond these cases. The basic (...) idea governing these films is now a wide-spread and deep-lying conviction in the contemporary American soul. It is that moral rules and rigorous moral order in life, as traditionally understood, are meaningless or pointless at best, and really are repressive of the best aspects of human relationships, individuality and creativity . What would have traditionally been thought of as moral propriety and human goodness is now generally thought of as arbitrary and as harmful to life, if not downright vicious (at least in its effects), largely because they eliminate or repress feelings , the true elixir of life. (shrink)

We argue that consumer sovereignty in an increasingly high tech world is more of a fiction than a fact. We show how the principle of consumer sovereignty that governs the societal impact of economic competition is no longer valid. The world of high tech is increasingly responsible for changes in the opportunity, ability, and motivation of business firms to compete. Furthermore, the world of high tech is increasingly responsible for changes in the opportunity, ability, and motivation of consumers to engage (...) in rational decision making. We conclude that we cannot rely on consumer sovereignty to maintain a thriving economy. Instead, we need to develop performance standards designed to meet the demands of the various stakeholders of the organization. (shrink)

"Blau not only charts how the American government's embrace of laissez-faire ideology has wreaked havoc...he tells us what can be done to undo the damage. Must reading for anyon who cares about what's happening to the average American."--Charles Noble, Professor of Political Science, CSU Long Beach.

This volume consists of an interesting collection of essays that highlight some of the difficulties societies and political systems are facing as a result of growing globalization and rapid technol...

The algorithm has become an increasingly important concept in understanding human behavior in recent years. In the case of sport, human bodies are seen as superficial to the driving force of the algorithm, whether it be genetic, behavioral or surveillance-technological algorithms (Harari Citation2015, 2020; Zuboff Citation2019). However, the French mathematician and philosopher Michel Serres (1930–2019) structurally relate algorithms to sports and bodily experience at multiple places in his oeuvre. According to Serres, sport actually enables us to reprogram and rewrite our (...) behavior, moods and thoughts, and therefore modifies our algorithmic status (Serres Citation1999, Citation2019). Against deterministic conceptions of the body, Serres argues that human bodies possess a ‘metamorphic’ nature that is similar to the procedural character of computer programs. This paper investigates the relationship between the algorithm and bodily existence through a reading of both Harari and Serres on sport. It will be argued that, against deterministic conceptions of the algorithm, the algorithm can actually broaden an understanding of the role of sports and physical activity. (shrink)

Neoliberalism is invariably presented as a governing regime of market and competition-based systems rather than as a set of migratory practices that are re-setting the ethical standards of the academy. This article seeks to explore the way in which neoliberalism is shifting the prevailing values of the academy by drawing on two illustrations: the death of disinterestedness and the obfuscation of authorship. While there was never a golden age when norms such as disinterestedness were universally practiced they represented widely accepted (...) aesthetic ideals associated with academic life. By contrast, neoliberal academics embrace a new set of assumptions and norms that stand in sharp relief to many of the values that were previously espoused. Practices that might have been regarded as ethically dubious by earlier generations of academics, such as grantsmanship, self-justificatory expressions of interestedness and tangential claims to authorship, are now regarded as legitimate and positive virtues in a more aggressive age of hyper-performativity. (shrink)

The article examines four models of data governance emerging in the current platform society. While major attention is currently given to the dominant model of corporate platforms collecting and economically exploiting massive amounts of personal data, other actors, such as small businesses, public bodies and civic society, take also part in data governance. The article sheds light on four models emerging from the practices of these actors: data sharing pools, data cooperatives, public data trusts and personal data sovereignty. (...) We propose a social science-informed conceptualisation of data governance. Drawing from the notion of data infrastructure we identify the models as a function of the stakeholders’ roles, their interrelationships, articulations of value, and governance principles. Addressing the politics of data, we considered the actors’ competitive struggles for governing data. This conceptualisation brings to the forefront the power relations and multifaceted economic and social interactions within data governance models emerging in an environment mainly dominated by corporate actors. These models highlight that civic society and public bodies are key actors for democratising data governance and redistributing value produced through data. Through the discussion of the models, their underpinning principles and limitations, the article wishes to inform future investigations of socio-technical imaginaries for the governance of data, particularly now that the policy debate around data governance is very active in Europe. (shrink)

Some 2000 years ago, Virgil wroteThe Georgics, a political tract on Romanagriculture in the form of a poem. Today, as aresult of rising global trade in food andagricultural products, growing economicconcentration, the merging of food andpharmacy, chronic obesity in the midst ofhunger, and new disease and pest vectors, weare in need of a new Georgics that addressesthe two key issues of our time: vigilance andvoice. On the one hand, vigilance must becentral to a new Georgics. Enforceablestandards for food safety, food (...) quality,environmental protection, worker health andsafety, sanitary and phytosanitaryrequirements, animal welfare, and appellationsmust be addressed. On the other hand, a newGeorgics must increase the range of persons whohave voice in the democratic governance of anew global agrifood system. New organizationsand institutions will be needed to accomplishthis task. (shrink)

This article develops an "ordonomic" approach to business ethics in the age of globalization. Through the use of a three-tiered conceptual framework that distinguishes between the basic game of antagonistic social cooperation, the meta game of rule-setting, and the meta-meta game of rule-finding discourse, we address three questions, the answers to which we believe are crucial to fostering effective business leadership and corporate social responsibility. First, the purpose of business in society is value creation. Companies have a social mandate to (...) organize mutually advantageous cooperation. Second, business ethics should teach the management competencies necessary to fulfill business's societal mandate. These competencies are optimization competence in the basic game of value creation, governance competence in the meta game of (political) rule setting, and the three discourse-related skills of orientation competence, reception competence, and communication competence necessary for engaging in the meta-meta game. Third, companies can help solve global problems through global corporate citizenship if they participate as political and moral actors in rule-setting processes and rule-finding discourse aimed at laying the foundation for value creation on a global scale. (shrink)

Higher education institutions are mining and analyzing student data to effect educational, political, and managerial outcomes. Done under the banner of “learning analytics,” this work can—and often does—surface sensitive data and information about, inter alia, a student’s demographics, academic performance, offline and online movements, physical fitness, mental wellbeing, and social network. With these data, institutions and third parties are able to describe student life, predict future behaviors, and intervene to address academic or other barriers to student success (however defined). Learning (...) analytics, consequently, raise serious issues concerning student privacy, autonomy, and the appropriate flow of student data. We argue that issues around privacy lead to valid questions about the degree to which students should trust their institution to use learning analytics data and other artifacts (algorithms, predictive scores) with their interests in mind. We argue that higher education institutions are paradigms of information fiduciaries. As such, colleges and universities have a special responsibility to their students. In this article, we use the information fiduciary concept to analyze cases when learning analytics violate an institution’s responsibility to its students. (shrink)

Over the last generation, American Business Ethics has focused excessively on the process of managerial decision-making while ignoring the collective impact of these decisions and avoiding other approaches that might earn the disapproval of corporate executives. This narrowness helped the field establish itself during the 1980s, when American management, under pressure from finance and heightened competition, was unreceptive to any limitations on its autonomy. Relying, however, on top-down approaches inspired by Aristotle, Locke, and Kant, while ignoring the consequentialism of Mill (...) and Rawls, made the field totally reliant upon the good will of these same corporate executives for generating any impact. Trends in employee compensation, finance, regulation, government procurement, and taxpayer subsidies suggest that Business Ethics has failed to significantly influence corporate behavior, a result that would have not surprised the realists of the post-war generation of Business and Society scholars. If Business Ethics is to prove relevant in the contemporary world, the field needs to acknowledge past failures and develop new approaches. The decline of American economic hegemony coupled to the increased internationalization of the discipline may create the opportunity to do so. (shrink)

Zack addresses current upheavals with a new conception of the relationship between citizens and government. Analyzing current states of race, class, gender, and other measures of social wellbeing, Zack promotes a new social compact wherein citizens as a whole make long-term resolutions outside of government institutions to ensure stability.

In the age of big data, machine learning models are globally used to execute default risk prediction. Imbalanced datasets and redundant features are two main problems that can reduce the performance of machine learning models. To address these issues, this study conducts an analysis from the viewpoint of different balance ratios as well as the selection order of feature selection. Accordingly, we first use data rebalancing and feature selection to obtain 32 derived datasets with varying ratios of balance and feature (...) combinations for each dataset. Second, we propose a comprehensive metric model based on multimachine learning algorithms to select the best-derived dataset with the optimal balance ratio and feature combination. Finally, the convolutional neural network is trained on the selected derived dataset to evaluate the performance of our approach in terms of type-II error, accuracy, G-mean, and AUC. There are two contributions in this study. First, the optimal balance ratio is found through the classification accuracy, which changes the deficiency of the existing research that samples are imbalanced or the balance ratio is 1 : 1 and ensures the accuracy of the classification model. Second, a comprehensive metric model based on the machine learning algorithm is proposed, which can simultaneously find the best balance ratio and the optimal feature selection. The experimental results show that our method can noticeably improve the performance of CNN, and CNN outperforms the other four commonly used machine learning models in the task of default risk prediction on four benchmark datasets. (shrink)

A growing literature is taking an institutionalist and governance perspective on how algorithms shape society based on unprecedented capacities for managing social complexity. Algorithmic governance altogether emerges as a novel and distinctive kind of societal steering. It appears to transcend established categories and modes of governance—and thus seems to call for new ways of thinking about how social relations can be regulated and ordered. However, as this paper argues, despite its novel way of realizing outcomes of (...) collective steering and coordination, it can nevertheless be grasped with an old and fundamental figure in political philosophy: that of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. Comparing algorithmic governance with this figure serves to highlight their similarities as socio-political arrangements, and specifically to clarify how algorithmic governance parallels the apolitical traits of the Leviathan—it eliminates the political as it requires compliance and forgoing contestation to best fulfill its role and to produce satisfying outcomes. (shrink)

ABSTRACT “Complexity” is ubiquitous in contemporary political commentary, where it is invoked to justify innovative governance programs. However, the term lacks analytic clarity. One way to make sense of it is to construct a genealogy of the notion of “wicked problems,” a concept that highlights the intractability of complex problems and problematizes the technocratic management of complexity. The term wicked problems originated in science planning in postwar Germany and urban planning in the United States. In both cases, planners rejected (...) a naïve optimism about the potential of technical expertise in favor of recognizing that many problems transcend the knowledge possessed by experts. This appreciation of complexity led to attempts, still ongoing, to accommodate both participatory and expert-based decision making in the face of wicked problems, producing a form of technical democracy in which problem solving requires the orchestration of conflict. (shrink)

Mayo Clinic is recognized as a worldwide leader in innovative, high-quality health care. However, the Catholic mission and ideals from which this organization was formed are not widely recognized or known. From partnership with the Sisters of St. Francis in 1883, through restructuring of the Sponsorship Agreement in 1986 and current advancements, this Catholic mission remains vital today at Saint Marys Hospital. This manuscript explores the evolution and growth of sponsorship at Mayo Clinic, defined as “a collaboration between the Sisters (...) of St. Francis and Mayo Clinic to preserve and promote key values that the founding Franciscan sisters and Mayo physicians embrace as basic to their mission, and to assure the Catholic identity of Saint Marys Hospital.” Historical context will be used to frame the evolution and preservation of Catholic identity at Saint Marys Hospital; and the shift from a “sponsorship-by-governance” to a “sponsorship-by-influence” model will be highlighted. Lastly, using the externally-developed Catholic Identity Matrix (developed by Ascension Health and the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota), specific examples of Catholic identity will be explored in this joint venture of Catholic health care institution and a secular, nonprofit corporation (Mayo Clinic). (shrink)

In this book, Kate Ward addresses the issue of inequality from the perspective of Christian virtue ethics. Her unique contribution is to argue that moral luck, our individual life circumstances, affects one's ability to pursue virtue. She argues that economic status functions as moral luck and impedes the ability of both the wealthy and the impoverished to pursue virtues such as prudence, justice, and temperance. The book presents social science evidence that inequality reduces empathy for others' suffering, and increases (...) violence, fear, and the desire to punish others. For the wealthy, inequality creates "hyperagency" - abundant freedom, power, and choice beyond that enjoyed by other members of society. For the poor, scarcity of time, money, and other important goods can also impair their ability to pursue virtue. Having established the theological harm caused by inequality, Ward then makes the argument that both individual Christians and Christian communities have obligations to address the impact of inequality. As individuals, Christians should pursue what Ward calls encounter, conversion, and contentment. Encounter means genuinely reaching out to the less fortunate and spending enough time to get to know individuals as human beings. For Ward, conversion means informing oneself about the realities of poverty and inequality. Contentment means being satisfied with one's position and not striving for more material wealth. Christian communities, in Ward's view, have obligations to pursue political action, tithing, and aid, and to foster encounters in parishes and educational settings. (shrink)

The complexity of population ageing effect is a significant challenge at a regional and local level. Adaptation activities require the cooperation of local governments, business entities and non-governmental organizations. The article describes the dimensions of interventions, typology of “shrinking regions” and two initiatives: Regions for All Ages and SEN@ER - Silver Economy Network of European Regions. In addition, essay discusses the dilemmas of creating special regional strategies with their implementation factors and barriers in the construction of silver economies. It is (...) supplemented by some conclusions from the analysis of selected regional development strategies in Poland. Summary sets out possible directions for further research for national institutions. (shrink)

This article is a critical genealogy of Tay, an artificial-intelligence chatbot that Microsoft released on Twitter in 2016, which was quickly hijacked by internet trolls to reproduce racist, misogynist, and antisemitic language. Tay’s repetition and production of hate speech calls for an approach that draws on both media and cultural theory—the Frankfurt School’s dialectical analyses of language and ideology, in particular. Revisiting the Frankfurt School in the age of algorithmic reason shows that, contrary to views foundational to computing, a (...) neural-network chatbot like Tay does not sidestep meaning but rather carries and alters it, with unforeseen social and political consequences. A return to the work of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno thus locates ideology in the digital world at the nexus of language’s ability to mean, language and meaning’s susceptibility to computation, and the design of a machine to compute both. Coming to critical terms with the antisemitism produced in Tay’s human-computer synthesis requires, as this article contends, addressing the uncanny embodiment and reflection of thought that is digital computation. (shrink)

The dramatic recent advances and emergent trends in technologies have brought to the fore many vital and challenging questions and dilemmas for leaders and organizations. These are issues that call for a critical, insightful examination of key questions such as: are modern technologies beneficial or problematic for the well-being of individuals, organizations, and societies at large; why do we seem to feel more disconnected in an age of technological connectivity; can organizations reduce technology-induced stresses and find ways to enable the (...) mindful use of technologies and how can organizations, governments and societies manage the use of technologies wisely? Such questions, when explored from various perspectives of wisdom, can yield significant insights, increase awareness of the issues, deepen the dialogue and help redesign an increasingly technology-driven future. However, there is little researched published material available on such questions and issues. Practical Wisdom in the Age of Technology: Insights, Issues and Questions for a New Millennium will provide a space to engage in thought-provoking dialogue and critical reflection on a variety of themes linking technology and practical wisdom. It will offer a foundation for exploration, inquiry, engagement, and discussion among organizational, political and social leaders, technology professionals, information systems academicians, wisdom researchers, managers, philosophers of technology, and other practitioners. (shrink)

Carol Gould's article offers a powerful argument against the sufficiency of informed consent in an age of surveillance capitalism. In this review, I assess the three main claims that Gould makes in her article, namely that (1) democratic control is required by the all‐affected principle; (2) democratic control is a means of ensuring that surveillance corporations and governments track public, rather than merely private, interests; and (3) democratic control is constitutive of freedom as self‐development and self‐transformation.