Page 148 - ITU Journal - ICT Discoveries - Volume 1, No. 2, December 2018 - Second special issue on Data for Good

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human development. Second, there is no need to systems and governance standards for building a
encroach on privacy for such a system to work; human AI. If successful, it will be expanded to other
aggregated anonymized (strictly speaking, countries and industries. OPAL and other cases
“pseudonymized”) indicators suffice. point to the fundamental discursive function of
data, and to the importance of processes, for
The human AI is an aspirational analogy. It is a call instilling positive social change. Setting up a project
for building human systems where facts matter; such as OPAL requires aligning incentives of large
where the efficiency and relevance of policies and organizations around a common objective; this
programs, and a multitude of sociopolitical process alone has many virtues.
processes and outcomes, can be assessed,
discussed, and improved on the basis of data. Another example of the value of processes that can
be facilitated by data and algorithms is that of a
5. REQUIREMENTS AND PRIORITIES FOR controversy around changes to school bus routes in
DESIGNING A HUMAN AI Boston, as recounted by Joi Ito, Director of the MIT
Media Lab [19]. Protests over changes to school bus
What is required for a human AI? It will take several routes in Boston ‘decided’ by an algorithm designed
key ingredients. It will take nurturing a strong, by MIT researchers led to the (human) decision not
healthy data culture, including widespread data to use it. What appeared in hindsight was that the
literacy, with more trust and interest in evidence- protesters were predominately wealthier families
informed debates among the public. It will also take who had ‘lost out’ as a result of the changes. In the
building better public governance for the systems words of Joi Ito:” “While I'm not sure privileged
that provide the data that can power a human AI, families would give up their good start times to help
including private sector data systems, allowing key poor families voluntarily, I think that if people had
data to be tapped into safely and ethically. understood what the algorithm was optimizing for—
sleep health of high school kids, getting elementary
These are, among others, the key objectives of the school kids home before dark, supporting kids with
Open Algorithms (OPAL) project [18]. OPAL aims to special needs, lowering costs, and increasing equity
allow accredited users to query private sector data overall—they would agree that the new schedule
through open algorithms running on the servers of was, on the whole, better than the previous one.”
partner private companies, behind their firewalls,
to extract key aggregated indicators of interest, What lacked there was basic human
from cell-phone activity, bank transactions, communication. This looks like a missed
possibly hospital records, police data, and more. opportunity to leverage the power of AI for the
With OPAL, no sensitive data ever leaves the servers common good as a result of human flaws. Discussing
of the data partner organizations. All queries are complex social issues through the lens of data and
logged, auditable; all algorithms are open, subject to algorithms, by transparently explaining and
scrutiny and redress. discussing the objectives, features, potential pitfalls,
of various algorithms, could change people’s
OPAL also aims to develop governance standards perceptions and attitudes towards fellow citizens
and processes that will allow data subjects to weigh and social problems.
in on the kinds of analyses done using data about
themselves; including through local oversight Whether or not empathy is what ultimately needs
bodies referred to as Councils for the Orientation of strengthening as the core human ingredient for
Development and Ethics, or CODEs. Sensitive use building better human systems is a matter of
cases are presented to the local CODEs, which may debate. It would seem like more empathy within
determine that a specific indicator, for example, and between groups could curb behaviors that hurt
population density estimates, should not be others, and lead to better overall social outcomes.
provided beyond a certain level of temporal and This sounds consistent with and conducive to a
geographic granularity for security reasons. human AI that would “reward and reinforce
decisions and actions of its members that
Currently piloted in Colombia and Senegal with two contribute to the common good, through and
leading telecommunication operators and their feeding candid fact-based discussions between its
national statistical offices, OPAL is the first ever members.”
real-world attempt at setting up technological

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