Tag: news

According to
ComputerWorld, Peter Sondergaard, head of global
research at Gartner Research predicted this week at the technology
consultancy’s annual symposium that…

“Knowledge work will be automated,” said Sondergaard, as will
physical jobs with the arrival of smart robots.

“Gartner predicts one in three jobs will be converted to
software, robots and smart machines by 2025,” said Sondergaard.
“New digital businesses require less labor; machines will be make
sense of data faster than humans can.”

Sondergaard’s Gartner Research colleague Andrea Di Maio
added:

Jobs will certainly be created, but how many  will be
destroyed? Massive automation of manual as well as increasingly
knowledge-intensive tasks on an unprecedented scale, from truck
drivers to police officers, from bank tellers to workers in
publishing companies, from workers in the entertainment in industry
to travel agent, from consultants to teachers, will create
inevitable social tensions even in the most stable societies and
best developed economies. The effectiveness of existing welfare and
lifelong learning mechanisms will be questioned by the sheer number
of people who will not have the right skills for new jobs and by
the simple truth that computers will be replacing humans at a pace
and on a scale that only science fiction work had originally
suggested.

Similarly to how accelerated  technology evolution makes
today’s technology legacy in a matter of a few years, so entire
generations of workers, experts, skilled people will find
themselves in urgent need of changing their skill set and
reinventing their career path…

However, if we accept that there will be uncertainty, if we
accept that the actual shape of the digital economy is hard to
predict, then the only skill that really matters is our ability to
embrace change. But, oddly enough, this may call for different
measures than those we see today. As far as education, is it really
more important to have an early experience in an industry that is
about to disappear, or should our kids actually spend time studying
more theoretical subjects, even philosophy, ancient Latin or basic
maths, to be better thinkers rather than quicker doers?…

We tend to look at the half (or even three-quarter) full glass
of digitalization, but we may be denying that it will take our
economies, our societies, our families and ourselves in places that
are more difficult to predict and tougher to live in than we
actually think.

See also my review
of George Mason University economist Tyler Cowen’s Average Is
Over which makes much the same case as the Gartner folks:

The rise and spread of intelligent machines has
led to increasing income inequality and anemic job growth. And this
dynamic is likely to be permanent. Such is the arresting and
depressing thesis proposed by the George Mason University economist
Tyler Cowen in his provocative new book, Average Is Over.

The American economy is becoming a “hyper-meritocracy” in which
workers will either be big earners or big losers, Cowen believes.
He blames this bifurcation on the rise of “genius machines,” which
are increasingly doing the routine intellectual work that once
supported millions of middle-income workers. If your skills enhance
the work of ever-more-intelligent machines, you’ll likely be a big
earner. If your skills do not complement the computer, you’re
liable to be a big loser. “Ever more people are starting to fall on
one side of the divide or the other,” writes Cowen. “That’s why
average is over.”

Well, I, for one, am all set with my degree in philosophy.

I’ve got a cover story
in the latest issue of
Wisconsin Interest Magazine looking at how Uber and
Lyft have turned the cab business—and politics as usual—upside down
in the Badger State. Here’s an excerpt:

“All of a sudden on a weekend in downtown Milwaukee there
were hundred of cars to choose from if you want to get home
from the bars,” says Anthony Sanders, who was the lead
attorney for the Institute for Justice in the Milwaukee
lawsuit. “The drivers were more confused than anyone because for
the longest time you could barely get a job driving, let alone
own your own vehicle,” he says. “It was just marvelous
to watch it all play out.”

Milwaukee’s taxi regime unraveled at an astonishing pace.
Ald. Robert Bauman, who sponsored the legislation that boosted
the number of permits by 100, came out with a new bill lifting
the cap altogether and legalizing services like Uber and Lyft.
Bauman’s bill was a model of laissez-faire governance, mandating
that drivers submit to regular vehicle inspections but
little more. The legislation sailed through the council, and
in August, Mayor Tom Barrett added his signature.

Uber and Lyft transformed the city’s taxi laws by throwing
a wrench in the political sausage factory. The city’s 1992 cap
came into existence in the first place because permit holders,
with much to gain, hired the law firm of Adelman, Adelman
& Murray to lobby the council to impose a cap. The bill
passed the council without getting much attention because
future drivers and the general public—those most hurt by the
cap—weren’t clued in, so they didn’t know to object.

Uber and Lyft clued them in.

Read
the whole thing.

Reason on Uber and
Lyft.

James Risen, a New York
Times reporter, potentially faces jail time as he resists
efforts by the
Obama administration to squeeze him for his sources on a story
about a failed CIA operation. Now that the Supreme Court has

rejected his appeal, he’s almost entirely at the mercy of the
Department of Justice. Under such pressure, some reporters would
fold, while others would just lawyer up. Risen is shooting back,

publicly castigating the Obama administration in March as “the
greatest enemy of press freedom that we have encountered in at
least a generation.” He also wants the press to continue going
after government no matter the backlash from imperious
officials.

“Journalists have no choice but to fight back because if they
don’t, they will become irrelevant,” Risen
told journalism students at Colby College in Maine just this
past weekend as he received the Elijah Parish
Lovejoy Award for journalism.

Some of the attendees seemed to want to let the guy in the White
House and his top cronies off the hook, asking what role role Obama
and Attorney General Eric Holder played in his persecution. Risen
wasn’t having any of it.

“I don’t think any of this would be happening under the Obama
administration if Obama didn’t want to do it,” Risen said. “I think
Obama hates the press. I think he doesn’t like the press and he
hates leaks.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists made the same point in a

special report last year:

U.S. President Barack Obama came into office pledging open
government, but he has fallen short of his promise. Journalists and
transparency advocates say the White House curbs routine disclosure
of information and deploys its own media to evade scrutiny by the
press. Aggressive prosecution of leakers of classified information
and broad electronic surveillance programs deter government sources
from speaking to journalists.

That report quoted David E. Sanger of The New York
Times saying, “This is the most closed, control freak
administration I’ve ever covered.”

Following up on the theme, the Associated Press (a target of
Obama administration surveillance) last month published a list of
“8
ways the Obama administration is blocking information.” That
article noted that “day-to-day intimidation of sources is chilling”
and that the administration even tries to control the information
that state and local officials can disclose.
Surveillance technology and practices are among the “secrets”
administration officials lean on local agencies to keep quiet.

Threatened by an administation that is actively hostile to
transparency, public disclosure, and the independent press, James
Risen’s vow to go to jail to protect his sources’ confidentiality
is a hell of a good example to set for rising young
journalists.

That said, hopefully the Obama administration wil have the
decency to back off so he doesn’t have to keep the promise.

It’s
already over for Good2Go, the iPhone app designed to promote
consensual campus sex. Apple removed the app, which was developed
by a third party, after determining that it violated official
policy.

I gave the app a mildly
favorable initial review. While I have no idea whether it would
ever catch on or work as intended, I’m inclined to think that
creative, entrepreneurial people are more likely to come up with
innovative solutions to social problems than clumsy
state legislators. I wrote:

Skeptics might say it’s too weird to ask people to use an app
before climbing into bed with them. But modern technology is
already changing how people find romantic and sexual partners.
Nowadays, people use apps like Grindr and Tindr to find sexual
partners all the time. Why can’t consent work the same way?

As it turns out, mine was just about the only remotely positive
appraisal on the web. Conservatives and liberals alike
attacked Good2Go. Criticisms ranged: Some said the app would
function as a way to “sign your own rape
confession,” others said the app would not help
actual victims, and still others said it was too confusing or
cumbersome to catch on. A major concern, highlighted
by The
Washington Post, was privacy:

When you use the trendy new consent app, Good2Go, you’re theoretically
practicing “affirmative consent”: explicit, conscious agreement to
sexual activity before it starts.

Incidentally, you’re also telling a new mobile development
company with no Internet footprint or
track record to speak of (a) who you’re sleeping with, (b)
when you did it, and (c) how drunk or sober you were at the
time.

Didn’t realize you consented to that, did you?

To be clear: Those are all valid concerns, and it may be the
case that Good2Go is unworkable due to some combination of the
above.

But why did Apple yank it from the app store after already
approving it? I spoke with Good2Go creator Lee Ann Allman, who said
that Apple gave notice that the app violated company guidelines,
which state “apps that present excessively objectionable or crude
content will be rejected.” Apple didn’t provide much explanation
beyond that, although the company did explain that Good2Go wouldn’t
have qualified as “crude,” leaving “excessively objectionable” as
the only possibility.

“[Apple] suggested that we retool and try to re-submit under the
education category,” Allman told Reason.

Allman believes the negative reception from the media influenced
Apple to shutdown Good2Go.

“I asked if they had heard from the public and they said yes,”
she said.

According to Allman, feedback was much more positive among
actual college students than among journalists.

“The feedback that we’ve gotten from college students… I think
there was some real interest,” she said. “I received messages from
people who had been very interested in using it.”

Allman plans to redesign the app and re-release it next year. At
a minimum, Good2Go will no longer store any information on the
people who use it. This will render it less useful in the field,
but Allman thinks colleges might be able to do something with it
for educational purposes.

Apple is a private company, and it has every right to reject
apps for any reason at all: good, bad, or arbitrary. Perhaps a
consensual sex iPhone app is simply a bad idea. Perhaps it’s a
fine idea, but the practical hurdles are
insurmountable.

I have no stake in the matter; if the app never works, oh well.
But I can’t help but wonder whether instinctive opposition to new
vehicles for social interaction played a role in killing Good2Go.
People laughed at the idea of using a phone app to find sexual
partners before Tindr, Grindr, et al. The idea of making purchases
over the internet was once suspect—how can I trust some
faceless salesperson half a world away?—and then Amazon
changed that. It may seem silly to whip out your phone when you
want to have sex, but it once seemed silly to whip out your phone
when you wanted to take a picture. Times change, folks.

The fight over abortion access in Texas
continues, now with a nudge from the U.S. Supreme Court. On
Tuesday, the Court told Texas it has until Thursday at noon to
respond to
an emergency application filed Monday on behalf of Texas
abortion providers. They’re seeking to halt House Bill 2, a law
which would force most of the state’s abortion clinics to shut down
by setting up unnecessary yet costly regulatory
requirements. 

Last week the
5th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily upheld the law, which
stipulates that all abortion clinics must meet standards set up for
major surgical centers, even if the clinic does not perform
surgical abortions. Once Texas responds this week, the Supreme
Court will decide whether to vacate the 5th Circuit’s
decision. 

That decision “is expected to mean that only seven or eight
clinics located in the largest cities in Texas will remain open,”
notes SCOTUS blogger Lyle Denniston. “Not long ago, Texas had more
than forty clinics operating throughout the state.”

Another facet of HB2 contributed to many of the closures. Under
this requirement—upheld
by the 5th Circuit last year—all abortion clinc doctors
must have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. The
ostensible point of the admitting privileges requirement is to
ensure women’s safety in case of an emergency, but considering a)
major complications from abortion are rare, b) women experiencing
major complications wouldn’t be turned away from a hospital simply
because their abortion doctor lacked admitting privileges, c) many
clinics in rural Texas were not located within 30 miles of a
hospital, and d) hospitals routinely refuse to grant admitting
privileges to abortion clinic doctors, the more realistic reason
behind the law is to shut down abortion clinics in the
state. 

But the 5th Circuit held that the requirement was valid—that is,
it didn’t pose an “undue burden” on women seeking abortion, the
prevailing legal standard for determining whether an abortion
restriction passes constitutional muster. The court didn’t issue a
final decision on the constitutionality of the requirement that all
clinics be remodeled to meet surgical-center standards—upgrades
projected to cost as much as $1 million per clinic—but it does
allow the regulation to be enforced while the matter of
constitutionality is being resolved. 

In its appeal to the Supreme Court yesterday, the Center for
Reproductive Rights, which is leading the clinics’ legal challenge,
assert that the Fifth Circuit’s order “was based on a demonstrably
wrong application of the undue burden standard.” More than 900,000
Texas women “now reside more than 150 miles from the nearest Texas
abortion provider, up from 86,000 prior to the enactment of the
challenged Act,” it points out. 

“Defendants… contend ‘rational speculation that the
regulations might provide a health benefit is sufficient to deprive
millions of Texas women of meaningful access to abortion
services,” it continues.

Ignoring foundational principles of constitutional law, the
Fifth Circuit adopted Defendants’ argument, holding that the
challenged requirements may be enforced without any inquiry
into whether the requirements further the State’s aims. But
this Court’s precedents make clear that the government may not
restrict a fundamental liberty based on rational speculation
alone. Rather, there must be a closer fit between the ends
sought to be achieved and the means selected to do so.

During last year’s challenge, the Supreme Ccourt declined to do
vacate the 5th Circuit’s ruling. However, the law’s impact on
abortion access in Texas has become more profound since then. A
spokeswoman for the Center for Reproductive Rights speculated that
this could alter the Court’s thinking, though she said the
organization has no expectations one way or the other.