Category: Artificial Intelligence, Data Science & Society
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Strengthening AI Accountability Through Better Third Party Evaluations (Part 2)
At a recent Stanford-MIT-Princeton workshop, experts highlight the need for legal protections, standardized evaluation practices, and better terminology to support third-party AI evaluations. On October 28, researchers at Stanford, MIT, Princeton’s Center for Information Technology Policy, and Humane Intelligence convened leaders from academia, industry, civil society and government for a virtual workshop to articulate a…
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Strengthening AI Accountability Through Better Third Party Evaluations (Part 1)
At a recent Stanford-MIT-Princeton workshop, experts highlight the need for legal protections, standardized evaluation practices, and better terminology to support third-party AI evaluations. Millions of people worldwide use general purpose AI systems: They use ChatGPT to write documents, Claude to analyze data, and Stable Diffusion to generate images. While these AI systems offer significant benefits,…
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CAC-Vote: Another Insecure Internet Voting System
Philip Stark and I have released this paper with an analysis of a DARPA-sponsored research project to develop an internet voting system. An Internet Voting System Fatally Flawed in Creative New Ways Abstract: The recently published “MERGE” protocol is designed to be used in the prototype CAC-vote system. The voting kiosk and protocol transmit votes…
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How to Conduct AI Oversight: Industry Insiders Make Recommendations to Senators
The Senate Committee on the Judiciary’s Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law hearing titled “Oversight of AI: Insiders’ Perspective” on September 17, 2024 sought to understand how and why the government can and should regulate the burgeoning industry. I attended the hearing and am writing to share my impressions here. Chock-full of analogies that…
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Ninth Circuit Upholds AADC Ban on “Dark Patterns”
On August 16, 2024, the Ninth Circuit ruled in NetChoice v. Bonta to strike significant portions of California’s Age-Appropriate Design Code (AADC) on First Amendment grounds. The Act was designed to enhance privacy and safety provisions for children online. The Ninth Circuit Court upheld the law’s ban on “dark patterns,” finding that the provision regulates conduct rather…
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Building on Colorado’s Success: All States Need Mandatory Rideshare Transparency Reporting
Colorado has become the first state mandating transparency specifically around platform fees and driver wages from rideshare platforms like Uber and Lyft, whose opaque AI and algorithmic operations have historically evaded legal oversight. On June 5 2024, Governor Jared Polis signed SB24-075, the Transportation Network Company Transparency bill into an act, compelling these platforms to…
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Rows and Columns, the County Line, and the ExpressVote XL
Why did New Jersey counties keep choosing one insecure voting machine after another, for decades? Only this year did I realize what the reason might be. A century ago, New Jersey (like many other states) adopted lever voting machines that listed the offices by row, with the parties (and their candidates) across the columns: The…
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Barcodes on paper ballots: the good, the bad, and the stealth
Paper ballots should not have barcodes to mark votes; paper ballots should have barcodes to mark ballot styles. Why is that? What’s the difference? And at the end, I describe a useful innovation from a company called Voting.works. One of the most important reasons we use paper ballots in elections is to protect our elections…
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Suggested Principles for State Statutes Regarding Ballot Marking and Vote Tabulation
This letter, signed by more than 20 election cybersecurity experts, was addressed to the Pennsylvania State Senate Committee on Government in response to a request for policy advice, but it applies in any state — especially those that use Ballot Marking Devices for all in-person voters: Georgia and South Carolina; most counties in Arkansas, New…
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Building the Society We Want: A CITP Conference
Twenty years ago, social media companies started telling us: “Hey, use this free digital mediaproduct!” We individually used it, or didn’t. And then we all used it, because we had to. Just like the car.The existence of the technology restricts human freedom and agency. The die has been cast:social media has reshaped everything and to…