Tag: Data Science

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Book Review – Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms – Part 1

Introduction
I often think of AI as something separate from traditional computer programming, something transcendent. However, most of the advances in modern AI are not the result of revolutionary new concepts or fields of study but rather the application of previously developed algorithms to significantly more powerful hardware and massive datasets.

Hannah Fry’s take on the world of AI covers topics ranging from justice to autonomous vehicles, crime, art and even to medicine. While the author is an expert in the field, she does a great job distilling the topics down to a level understandable by a layperson, but also keeps it interesting for someone with more background in programming and AI.

My favourite quote from the first part of the book comes on page 8, where Hannah succinctly describes the essence of what an algorithm is in only one sentence:

An algorithm is simply a series of logical instructions that show, from start to finish, how to accomplish a task.

Fry, Hannah. Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms (p. 8). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition

Once you read it, it seems obvious, but trying to describe to a first-year computer science student what an algorithm is can be a challenging task. The author manages this well. Despite the complexity and depth of the subject matter, Fry is able to bring context and relevance to a broad array of topics. The remainder of my review will speak to some of the book’s many sections and how someone with a business-facing view into the topics sees them.

Data
This section covers some of the unknown giants in data-science including Peter Thiel’s Palantir. The section also touches on some very public examples where analytics has played a negative role – Cambridge Analytica’s use of private user data during the 2016 Presidential Elections.

The story here is about data brokers. Data brokers are companies who buy and collect user data and personal information and then resell it or share it for profit. A surprising fact is that some of these databases contain records of everything that you’ve ever done from religious affiliations to credit-card usage. These companies seem to know everything about just about everyone. It turns out that it is relatively simple to make inferences about a person based on their online habits.

The chapter converges to one of the major stories of 2018, the Cambridge Analytica scandal. But it begins by discussing the five personality traits that psychologists have used to quantify individuals’ personalities since the 1980s: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. By pulling data from users’ Facebook feeds, Cambridge Analytica was able to create detailed personality profiles to deliver emotionally charged and effective political messages.

Perhaps the most interesting fact though, is how small of an impact this type of manipulation actually has. The largest change reported was from 11 clicks in 1000 to 16 clicks in 1000 (less than 1 percent). But even this small effect, spread over a population of millions can cause dramatic changes to the outcome of, say, an election.

That’s the end of part 1 of this review. In Part 2, I’ll touch on some of the other sections of the book including Criminal Justice and Medicine.

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How Data Will Be Used To Decide Your Future

Welcome to 2019! Let’s start the year off by discussing how your ability to exercise your free will could be directly impacted by who you follow on social media, or who you pass by on the street.

In the dystopian Netflix series Black Mirror, there is an episode called Nosedive where a person’s ability to ride a plane, work at their job or even be served food at a restaurant is decided by a crowd-sourced rating system. Much like you rate your Uber driver at the end of your trip (and your Uber driver rates you), in this episode, every social interaction is followed by both parties giving each other a star-rating with an app on their phone. Everyone’s rating is public and it seems like you can downvote someone at any time. People with higher overall scores have more influence on the scores of people that they interact with. Inevitably, the episode’s main character encounters a string of bad luck and unfortunate encounters that lead to her score tumbling to almost nothing. She ends up losing her job, her home and her ability to travel in a matter of days based on nothing more than a few left swipes from some strangers and a co-worker.

Image result for black mirror rating episode

Everyone has bad days, so it really hits home when you see the protagonist lose her life over a few social mishaps. She doesn’t actually die, but she is locked in a plastic box because of her low social score.

How far are we from experiencing this kind of scenario in our lives?

The Chinese government has announced plans to implement a Social Credit Score for its citizens, that tracks all online and in-person activity, including who your friends are, who you talk to and who your acquaintances talk to. This score will decide if you can get a loan on a house, similar to a credit score in the United States or Canada, but it will also decide what schools you can go to, what businesses you can shop at and even whether or not you can leave the country. Going live in 2020, literally next year, all 1.6 billion Chinese residents will be subject to this Social Credit System; a system that is eerily similar to the one described in the Black Mirror episode.

I live in North America. Calgary, Alberta, Canada, specifically, so this won’t affect me, right?

All around the world, people have free and easy access to instant global communication networks, the wealth of human knowledge at their fingertips, up-to-the-minute information from across the earth, and unlimited usage of the most remarkable software and technology, built by private companies, paid for by adverts. That was the deal that we made. Free technology in return for your data and the ability to use it to influence and profit from you. The best and worst of capitalism in one simple swap. We might decide we’re happy with that deal. And that’s perfectly fine. But if we do, it’s important to be aware of the dangers of collecting this data in the first place. We need to consider where these datasets could lead – even beyond the issues of privacy and the potential to undermine democracy (as if they weren’t bad enough). There is another twist in this dystopian tale. An application for these rich, interconnected datasets that belongs in the popular Netflix show Black Mirror, but exists in reality. It’s known as Sesame Credit, a citizen scoring system used by the Chinese government. Imagine every piece of information that a data broker might have on you collapsed down into a single score. Everything goes into it. Your credit history, your mobile phone number, your address – the usual stuff. But all your day-to-day behaviour, too. Your social media posts, the data from your ride-hailing app, even records from your online matchmaking service. The result is a single number between 350 and 950 points. Sesame Credit doesn’t disclose the details of its ‘complex’ scoring algorithm. But Li Yingyun, the company’s technology director, did share some examples of what might be inferred from its results in an interview with the Beijing-based Caixin Media. ‘Someone who plays video games for ten hours a day, for example, would be considered an idle person. Someone who frequently buys diapers would be considered as probably a parent, who on balance is more likely to have a sense of responsibility.’ If you’re Chinese, these scores matter. If your rating is over 600 points, you can take out a special credit card. Above 666 and you’ll be rewarded with a higher credit limit. Those with scores above 650 can hire a car without a deposit and use a VIP lane at Beijing airport. Anyone over 750 can apply for a fast-tracked visa to Europe. It’s all fun and games now while the scheme is voluntary. But when the citizen scoring system becomes mandatory in 2020, people with low scores stand to feel the repercussions in every aspect of their lives. The government’s own document on the system outlines examples of punishments that could be meted out to anyone deemed disobedient: ‘Restrictions on leaving the borders, restrictions on the purchase of . . . property, travelling on aircraft, on tourism and holidays or staying in star-ranked hotels.’ It also warns that in the case of ‘gravely trust breaking subjects’ it will ‘guide commercial banks . . . to limit their provision of loans, sales insurance and other such services’. Loyalty is praised. Breaking trust is punished.

Fry, Hannah. Hello World: Being Human in the Age of Algorithms (pp. 44-46). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.

Science fiction mirrors reality and reality reflects science fiction. While this type of system is only going live in China, it is unclear how long we have before something similar arrives in the West.