Ethicists Revealed
March 31, 2019
I did not want to release this item on April Fool’s Day. The story which caught my attention was “A Study of Ethicists Finds They’re No More Ethical Than the Rest of Us (and No Better at Calling Their Mothers).” I assume this article contains “real” facts and is “real” news. Here’s what I circled with my True Blue marker, the same one I used to annotate Kritik der Urteilskraft:
A study of 417 professors published last week in Philosophical Psychology found that, though the 151 ethics professors expressed stricter moral views, they were no better at behaving ethically.
Here’s an example of one finding:
Most people agreed that not calling one’s mother was poor form: 75% of non-philosophers, 70% of non-ethicists and 65% of ethicists thought that not doing so was immoral. And, when it came to following through, the majority did manage to contact their mothers at least twice a month: 87% of ethicists did so, alongside 81% of non-ethicist philosophers, and 89% of non-philosophers. As with most moral acts, the researchers found no clear link between ethical expertise and ethical behavior.
Remarkable information. Is it ethical to say that?
Stephen E Arnold, March 31, 2019
Silicon Valley: Are Its Governance and Innovation Showing Signs of Deterioration?
March 30, 2019
I was zipping through the news items which assorted filter bubble robots fire at me each day. I noticed three items, which on the surface, appear to be unrelated. I asked myself, “What if there is a connection among each of these items?” Let’s take a look.
Was this driven by a Silicon Valley bro or smart software?
The first item is Apple’s admission that it cannot create a viable wireless charging device. The company has labored for years and admitted that it cannot pull off this “innovation.” “Apple Kills AirPower Charging Station, but Here Are Some Alternatives (for a Single Device)” states:
Citing technical difficulties in meeting its own standards, Apple has issued a statement announcing the long awaited AirPower wireless charging mat will not ship, ever. AirPower was announced alongside the iPhone X with a pending release date, and now, more than 550 days later, it has been cancelled.
Apple has people. Apple has money. Apple has failed. Problems exist with the butterfly keyboard. What’s happening?
The second item is about disappearing emails and messages. Some might describe these digital artifacts as evidence. The article “Some of Mark Zuckerberg’s Old Facebook Posts Have Disappeared” reports:
the social network accidentally deleted some of Zuckerberg’s old Facebook posts, including all the ones he made in 2007 and 2008.
This is interesting because I thought backups were mostly routine. Apparently this was not the case at Facebook. What’s happening?
The third item is about a failure to get one’s act together. I read “Google Accidentally Leaks Its ‘Nest Hub Max’ Smart Display.” I learned:
in a leak on its own website, Google might have accidentally revealed an upcoming product called the Nest Hub Max.
What’s happening?
Now let’s consider several hypotheses which may help me creep a bit closer to the thread linking these apparently isolated events.
- The three companies are not able to govern their commercial empires. A failure to deliver a product, an egregious and difficult to believe statement about “losing email”, and an inability to organize a news item—the problem is governance of the business process.
- The three companies seem indifferent to the implications of each firm’s individual actions: Apple’s misstatement about a device, Facebook’s continued dancing around information, and Google’s PR flub—each illustrates a deeper issue. I term it “high school science club management method.” Bright folks see what they see, and not what others see. HSSCMM at work.
- The three companies demonstrate the inherent weaknesses of the Silicon Valley approach: failure, ineptness or duplicitous behavior, and taking one’s eye off the ball.
Just a series of hypotheses, mind you. What if these examples are the tip of a fast melting iceberg?
Stephen E Arnold, March 30, 2019
Palantir Technologies: The Winding Down of DCGS and the Winding Up of Old School Intelware Vendors
March 29, 2019
Update (March 30, 2019) to related to winding down:
First Mercantile Trust Co Has Lowered By $390,609 Its Raytheon Company in DMinute
If you recognize the acronym “DCGS”, you probably know that the Tolkien-infused intelware vendor Palantir Technologies has captured the $800 million contract for the US Army’s “new” intelligence system. If not, you won’t care.
According to “Palantir Wins Competition to Build Army Intelligence System,”:
The Army has chosen Palantir Technologies to deploy a complex battlefield intelligence system for soldiers, according to Army documents, a significant boost for a company that has attracted a devoted following in national security circles but had struggled to win a major defense contract.
The deal is important. A number of old school vendors have been chugging away on intelware for years. Vendors like Raytheon, IBM, Digital Reasoning, and dozens of others failed to deliver. Palantir, which is not without its share of issues, is going to provide war fighters with a more modern systems.
The fact that Palantir’s core software dates from 2003 suggests that more up to date systems are not in the cards for years to come. DarkCyber has picked up rumors that big chunks of Palantir’s plumbing uses open source, plays semi-nice with legacy system file formats, and operates on the Amazon AWS infrastructure are important to war fighters. The possibility exists that Palantir Technologies can embrace and extend the functionality of its systems.
Does this procurement hint at any future big Pentagon contract announcements? Maybe.
Stephen E Arnold, March 29, 2019
IBM and Oldsters
March 29, 2019
I can hear the question posed to IBM Watson now, “Watson, is it okay to fire older employees in order the make room for younger, less expensive workers?”
I even can anticipate the IBM Watson answer, “Yes.”
IBM Watson is smart software, but it does not do as well providing human resource outputs as it does with generating recipes which require tamarind.
How do I know?
I read “IBM Sued By Former Employees For Alleged Illegal Firing.” I learned from the article:
IBM is being sued by a group of its former employees for allegedly laying them off for their age.
The write up added what seems obvious to a human like me but probably a nuance unnoticed by IBM’s Watson:
The lawyers of the complainants added that their main case against IBM would be a major age-discrimination lawsuit. They said that top executives of the company “took the calculated risk of openly breaking the law” in order to cover up substantial, targeted layoffs of its older workers.
IBM Watson may need a bit more training, particularly information related to employment laws and regulations.
Stephen E Arnold, March 29, 2019
Smart Software Has a Possible Blind Spot
March 29, 2019
Following the recent attacks in two New Zealand mosques, during which a suspected terrorist successfully live-streamed horrific video of their onslaught for over a quarter-hour, many are asking why the AI tasked with keeping such content off social media failed us. As it turns out, context is key. CNN explains “Why AI Is Still Terrible at Spotting Violence Online.” Reporter Rachel Metz writes:
“A big reason is that whether it’s hateful written posts, pornography, or violent images or videos, artificial intelligence still isn’t great at spotting objectionable content online. That’s largely because, while humans are great at figuring out the context surrounding a status update or YouTube, context is a tricky thing for AI to grasp.”
Sites currently try to account for that shortfall with a combination of AI and human moderators, but they have trouble keeping up with the enormous influx of postings. For example, we’re told YouTube users alone upload more than 400 hours of video per minute. Without enough people to provide context, AI is simply at a loss. Metz notes:
“AI is not good at understanding things such as who’s writing or uploading an image, or what might be important in the surrounding social or cultural environment. … Comments may superficially sound very violent but actually be satire in protest of violence. Or they may sound benign but be identifiable as dangerous to someone with knowledge about recent news or the local culture in which they were created.
I also circled this statement:
“… Even if violence appears to be shown in a video, it isn’t always so straightforward that a human — let alone a trained machine — can spot it or decide what best to do with it. A weapon might not be visible in a video or photo, or what appears to be violence could actually be a simulation.”
On top of that, factors that may not be apparent to human viewers, like lighting, background images, or even frames per seconds, complicate matters for AI. It appears it will be some time before we can rely on algorithms to shield social media from abhorrent content. Can platforms come up with some effective alternative in the meantime? Sure, as long as the performance is in the 50 to 75 percent accuracy range.
Cynthia Murrell, March 29, 2019
Silicon Valley: The New Center of Ethical Thought
March 28, 2019
I read “Ethical Question Takes Center Stage at Silicon Valley Summit on Artificial Intelligence.” The write up is a collection of statements made by people attending the conference. A couple of the statements were fascinating; for instance, here’s one allegedly offered by a Google senior vice president:
Google’s Walker [a senior VP of global affairs] said the company has some 300 people working to address issues such as racial bias in algorithms but the company has a long way to go.
I wonder if each attendee received a copy of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism? TLDNR probably.
Stephen E Arnold, March 28, 2019
Content Management: Now a Playground for Smart Software?
March 28, 2019
CMS or content management systems are a hoot. Sometimes they work; sometimes they don’t. How does one keep these expensive, cranky databases chugging along in the zip zip world of content utilities which are really inexpensive?
Smart software and predictive analytics?
Managing a website is not what is used to be, and one of the biggest changes to content management systems is the use of predictive analytics. The Smart Data Collective discusses “The Fascinating Role of Predictive Analytics in CMS Today.” Reporter Ryan Kh writes:
“Predictive analytics is changing digital marketing and website management. In previous posts, we have discussed the benefits of using predictive analytics to identify the types of customers that are most likely to convert and increase the value of your lead generation strategy. However, there are also a lot of reasons that you can use predictive analytics in other ways. Improving the quality of your website is one of them. One of the main benefits of predictive analytics in 2019 is in improving the performance of content management systems. There are a number of different types of content management systems on the market, including WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and Shopify. There are actually hundreds of content management systems on the market, but these are some of the most noteworthy. One of the reasons that they are standing out so well against their competitors is that they use big data solutions to get the most value for their customers.”
The author notes two areas in which predictive analytics are helping companies’ bottom lines: fraud detection and, of course, marketing optimization; the latter through capacities like more effective lead generation and content validation.
Yep, CMS with AI. The future with spin.
Cynthia Murrell, March 28, 2019
Intercept Intercepted?
March 28, 2019
While it is an old swan song, journalism continues to take a big hit when it comes to the Internet. The Columbia Journalism Review shares how The Intercept recently took a big hit in, “The Intercept, A Billionaire Funded Public Charity, Cuts Back.” First Look Media is a digital media company founded by a tech billionaire Pierre Omidyar and it owns the Intercept, a public charity journalism Web site that solicits donations from its readers to support “fearless, independent journalism.”
The Intercept’s co-founder Laura Poitras was “surprised” when she heard that 4% of her research team had to be downsized. The employee cuts may be perceived as out of step with how a public service is supposed to work. But reader support is not enough to keep it going. Omidyar was the biggest backer for First Look Media and he pumped his own money into the service, relying on his stocks from PayPal and eBay. Maybe tax concerns are an issue.
Omidyar started his digital journalism company in 2013 hoping to create a beacon for old-fashioned journalism in the industry’s changing face. It went well in the beginning, but it did not take long for his company to be reporting on the wrong type of content. Journalists were unhappy with the company’s culture and many left without looking back.
The salaries are also making people scratch their heads:
“ ‘I was recruited to work with First Look before it was publicly announced,’ Marcy Wheeler, a national security journalist best known for her coverage of Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia and the Trump campaign, wrote in a January 2018 essay. ‘The initial discussions pertained to a full-time job, with a generous salary. But along the way—after Glenn and Jeremy Scahill had already gotten a number of other people hired and as Pierre Omidyar started hearing from friends that the effort was out of control—the outlet decided that they were going to go in a different direction. They’d have journalists—Glenn and Jeremy counted as that. And they’d have bloggers, who would get paid less.’ That discrepancy, and the indignity of being treated as a less-than-full journalist, led to her resignation.’”
The top brass’s salaries are not going to change, while those lower on the totem pole are squished. Perhaps a library will step forward to house the information. Moscow State University perhaps?
Whitney Grace, March 28, 2019
Audio Search: Google Gets with the Program
March 27, 2019
Searching audio files has been difficult. Exalead, before Dassault bought the company, dabbled in audio search. One could key in a key word and jump to the segment of a file which contained the word or phrase. That was in 2006, maybe 2007. That was, despite my advanced age and inability to recall the innovations from search and retrieval wizards, more than a decade ago.
I read “Google Podcast in Episode Search Is Coming, Shows Now Being Fully Transcribed.” The write up reports:
Google Podcasts is now automatically generating transcripts of episodes and is using them as metadata to help listeners search for shows, even if they don’t know the title or when it was published.
I spoke with a person who translates audio recordings from one language into English. Here are some highlights from that chat:
- “Even though I am a native speaker and fluent in English, it is very, very difficult to make out what some people are saying. I slow down the recording. I listen several times. I fiddle with the sound.”
- “Accents pose a problem. For example, if a person is speaking one language but learned that language by osmosis, the pronunciation is often strange. In some cases, I have no idea what the person speaking is trying to communicate. Some people do not articulate or put the stresses where a native speaker puts them.
- “Muddled sounds pose big challenges. I am not sure why but even modern recording equipment drops sounds. In some cases, rustling or tapping fuzzes what the person is saying.”
Net net: How accurate will the transcripts be? The answer is going to be like the accuracy scores for facial recognition? Maybe 50 percent to 75 percent accurate out of the gate. But better than nothing, when one wants to sell ads which match the translated key words, right? Will Steve Gibson stop creating transcripts of Security Now? Probably not.
Stephen E Arnold, March 27, 2019
Factualities for March 27, 2019
March 27, 2019
Believe these numerical wonders or not.
5.7 percent. Percentage increase in mental health problems when companies shift to performance based pay. Source: Academy of Management
9. Number of hours the US iGen generation spends in front of a screen. The Conversation
4.2 million. Number of Sony virtual reality headsets sold since 2016. Source: Bit Tech
90 percent. Percentage of Americans with pesticides in their blood. Source: The Nation
61 percent. Percentage of chief information officers who believe employees leak data maliciously. Source: Help Net Security
37 percent. Percentage of worldwide mobile traffic consumed by YouTube viewers. Source: Search Engine Journal
$479 million. Value of Microsoft’s Hololens deal with the Pentagon which MSFT employees want the company to cancel. Source: Market.us
<3 percent. Computing devices properly wiped before recycling. Source: Dark Reading
10.5 billion. Number of malware attacks in 2018. Source:IT Pro Portal
33 percent. Percentage of time that television ads play to an empty room. Source: Quartz
73 percent. Amount of activity a person’s second most used app receives. Source: Discover
$76,000. Amount a scammer earned through domain squatting. Source: Next Web
$3.2 million. Amount Google will “give” to the Asia Pacific Innovation Challenge. Source: Branding in Asia
$123 million. Amount Facebook and Google paid to a Lithuanian who submitted fake invoices to the companies. Source: ZDNet
$3.1 billion. Amount Uber paid for Careem on demand taxi service. Source: SFGate
Stephen E Arnold, March 27, 2019
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