Algorithms Almighty What We Need to Know

We need to know the algorithms the government uses to make important decisions about us

 

Nicholas Diakopoulos, University of Maryland
In criminal justice systems, credit markets, employment arenas, higher education admissions processes and even social media networks, data-driven algorithms now drive decision-making in ways that touch our economic, social and civic lives. These software systems rank, classify, associate or filter information, using human-crafted or data-induced rules that allow for consistent treatment across large populations.

But while there may be efficiency gains from these techniques, they can also harbor biases against disadvantaged groups or reinforce structural discrimination. In terms of criminal justice, for example, is it fair to make judgments on an individual’s parole based on statistical tendencies measured across a wide group of people? Could discrimination arise from applying a statistical model developed for one state’s population to another, demographically different population?

The public needs to understand the bias and power of algorithms used in the public sphere, including by government agencies. An effort I am involved with, called algorithmic accountability, seeks to make the influences of those sorts of systems clearer and more widely understood.

Existing transparency techniques, when applied to algorithms, could enable people to monitor, audit and criticize how those systems are functioning – or not, as the case may be. Unfortunately, government agencies seem unprepared for inquiries about algorithms and their uses in decisions that significantly affect both individuals and the public at large.

Opening algorithms to public scrutiny

 

Last year the federal government began studying the pros and cons of using computerized data analysis to help determine prison inmates' likelihood of reoffending upon release. Scoring individuals as low-, medium-, or high-risk can help with housing and treatment decisions, identifying people who can safely be sent to a minimum security prison or even a “halfway house,” or who would benefit from a particular type of psychological care.

That information can make the justice process more efficient and less expensive, and even reduce prison crowding. Treating low-risk offenders like high-risk offenders has been shown in some studies to lead to them internalizing being a “sick” criminal and in need of treatment for their deviant behavior. Separating them can thus reduce the development of negative behaviors that would lead to recidivism upon release.

One of several worksheets laying out an algorithm for sentencing convicted criminals. Virginia Sentencing Commission

Data and algorithms for scoring inmates' reoffending risk are already used extensively by states for managing pretrial detention, probation, parole and even sentencing. But it’s easy for them to go unnoticed – they often look like unassuming bureaucratic paperwork.

Typically the algorithms are boiled down to simplified score sheets that are filled out by public servants with little understanding of the underlying calculations. For instance, a case worker might evaluate a prisoner using a form where the case worker marks down that the prisoner had been convicted of a violent crime, was young at the time of the first arrest, and had not graduated from high school or gotten a GED. Those factors and other characteristics about the person and the crime result in a score that suggests whether the inmate might be eligible for parole review.

The form itself, as well as its scoring system, often discloses key features about the algorithm, like the variables under consideration and how they come together to form an overall risk score. But what’s also important for algorithmic transparency is to know how such forms were designed, developed and evaluated. Only then can the public know whether the factors and calculations involved in arriving at the score are fair and reasonable, or uninformed and biased.

Using the Freedom of Information Act

 

Our primary tool for getting our hands on those forms, and their supporting material, is the law, and specifically, freedom of information laws. They are among the most powerful mechanisms the public has at its disposal for ensuring transparency in government. At the federal level, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) allows the public to formally request – and expect to receive in return – documents from the federal government. Analogous statutes exist for each state.

Enacted in 1966, FOIA was created before the widespread use of computing, and well before large reams of data were routinely used in software systems to manage individuals and make predictions. There has been some initial research into whether FOIA is able to facilitate the disclosure of software source code. But a question remains about whether current laws are responsive to the needs of the 21st-century public: can we FOIA algorithms?

A case study in algorithm transparency

 

I set out to answer this question at the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, where I am an assistant professor. In the fall of 2015, working with my colleague Sandy Banisky’s media law class, we guided students in submitting FOIA requests to each of the 50 states. We asked for documents, mathematical descriptions, data, validation assessments, contracts and source code related to algorithms used in criminal justice, such as for parole and probation, bail or sentencing decisions.

As a semester-long project, the effort was necessarily constrained by time, with plenty of hurdles and relatively few successes. As with many journalists' investigations, even figuring out whom to ask – and how – was a challenge. Different agencies may be responsible for different areas of the criminal justice system (sentencing might be done by courts, but parole management done by a Department of Corrections).

Even after identifying the right person, students found government officials used different terminology that made it hard to communicate what information they wanted. At times, students had to work hard to explain “criminal justice algorithms” to a not-so-data-savvy public servant. In retrospect, it might have been more effective to ask for “risk assessment tools,” as that is a term often used by state governments.

Handling the answers

 

Some states, such as Colorado, flat-out denied our request, saying that the algorithms were contained in software, which was not considered a “document” that open government laws required officials to make public. Different states have different rules about disclosing software use. This has sometimes surfaced in the courts, such as a 2004 suit against the city of Detroit over whether the formula for calculating water fees charged to an adjacent city should be made public.

In our own efforts, we received only one mathematical description of a criminal justice algorithm: Oregon disclosed the 16 variables and their weights in a model used there to predict recidivism. The state of North Dakota released an Excel spreadsheet showing the equation used for determining dates when inmates would be eligible to be considered for parole. From Idaho and New Mexico we received documents with some descriptions of the recidivism-risk assessments those states used, but no details about how they were developed or validated.

Nine states based their refusal to disclose details about their criminal justice algorithms on the claim that the information was really owned by a company. This implication is that releasing the algorithm would harm the firm that developed it. A common recidivism-risk questionnaire, called the LSI-R, turns out to be a commercial product, protected by copyright. States such as Hawaii and Maine claimed that prevented its disclosure to the public.

Louisiana said its contract with the developer of a new risk assessment technique barred the release of the requested information for six months. The state of Kentucky cited its contract with a philanthropic foundation as the reason it could not disclose more details. Concerns about proprietary information may be legitimate, but given that the government routinely contracts with private companies, how do we balance those concerns against an explainable and indeed legitimate justice system?

Making improvements

 

Much-needed FOIA reform is currently under deliberation by Congress. This provides an opportunity for the law to be modernized, but the proposed changes still do little to accommodate the growing use of algorithms in government. Algorithmic transparency information might be codified into reports that the government generates and makes public on a regular basis, as part of business as usual.

As a society we should require that public information officers be trained so they are literate and indeed fluent in the terminology they may encounter when the public is asking for algorithms. The federal government might even create a new position for an “algorithms czar,” an ombudsman whose task it would be to communicate about and field inquiries into government automation.
None of the documents we received in our research told us how criminal justice risk assessment forms were developed or evaluated. As algorithms govern more and more of our lives, citizens need – and must demand – more transparency.


Nicholas Diakopoulos, Tow Fellow, Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University; Assistant Professor of Journalism, University of Maryland
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Uptown Memories

A Strangely Special Beautiful Neighborhood 

 

Without no lag I'm packin' my bag of discontented frowns
And hopping number eighty-six, the first train that is freedom bound.
Got my bag of many frowns and I'm takin' it on Uptown.
To hop the train that's freedom bound for Uptown.

Takin' It On Uptown

I arrived alone in Chicago in August of 1974….in the middle of one of the worst recessions in memory. With nothing but the shirt on my back and just nine dollars in my pocket, I boarded the CTA Red Line train heading north…and arrived at the Wilson Broadway Uptown station to embark upon a new chapter in my life as well as jettisoning and burying my personal past. Knowing no one there in the neighborhood at that moment, my predicament and circumstance would be best described from a famous World War II poem stanza:

"No mama, no papa, no Uncle Sam.

No aunts, no uncles, no cousins, no nieces.

And nobody gives a damn!”

The very first thought as I got out onto the bustling avenue was obviously of course, to find some kind of shelter. The needs of my gnawing hunger in the belly would have to come later. Since I only had nine dollars on me, it became plainly evident that I would have to find the cheapest accommodations available, which meant: the three dollar a night Wilson Club Hotel. That left me with only two more days to stay there as I was pondering my future in that tiny cubicle room with the chicken wired ceiling. My salvation would be the daily pay halls that at the time, were the very heart and backbone of Uptown. 

"The faded signs on the side of the Wilson Club Men's Hotel offered rooms for $1.75 (or something) and eight-dollar divorces. In those days I could understand the appeal of both. There seemed to be the potential for a great singles neighborhood here. Indeed what originally brought me to Uptown were the For Rent ads: the rooming houses, studios, kitchenettes--and you could pay by the week."

Men in Cages

After my first night’s sleeping at the hotel, with the room shaking from the nearby overhead rumbling L trains, I set out before the crack of dawn looking for any kind of work. After negotiating past a sleeping sidewalk inebriate who was blocking the hotel’s doorway exit, I started marching east for the ‘Staff Builders’ temp office on Wilson and Kenmore for the long waiting vigil among the many job seekers who packed that office. One by one they all received their assignments until 3 hours later, I was the only one left…and began seriously contemplating sleeping out in the park. Finally I was offered a backbreaking job that no one else wanted but in my present situation I could not refuse.  So on an empty stomach and skinny as a coat hanger, I was sent out on a grueling remodeling job for a Greek restaurant owner knocking down walls with a hammer all day long. I managed somehow to complete the job and earned my very first $12.00 day labor paycheck. I soon cashed It afterwards  at the currency exchange on Broadway and Wilson and devoured a Big Mac at the nearby McDonalds….my first substantial satisfying meal in days. Arriving at my tiny cubicle room back at the Wilson Club Hotel, with some extra cash to spare, my morale picked up when I realized that I could actually survive living in Uptown.

"The 7-by-7 rooms are tiny and crowded, with only enough space for a twin bed, a dresser and maybe a shelving unit. The building is historic but worn, dark and drab, and much of the decor harks back to another era."

At Uptown cubicle hotel, a fight to stay open

Broadway between Wilson and Montrose was the daily pay hall strip with names like Nationwide, Manpower, Readymen, and Handy Andy all lining the western part of the avenue and their buses parked and running. I frequented every one of them and was sent out doing a variety of jobs like crushing trade-in TV sets for Polk Brothers, warehouse work, shoveling snow in Wrigley Field, and even shoveling horse manure at Northwestern Stables in Mount Prospect with a lifetime chance of mingling with the rich and famous and traveling there via the Skokie Swift extension.

A main important part of my existence and that I naturally looked forward to everyday, was the ‘New Yankee Grill’ located just across the street from the Wilson Club Hotel. My personal daily menu was always the same: a half dozen wedges of golden French toast for breakfast, and medium rare steaks for dinner. My famished appearance receded from memory. The ‘New Yankee Grill’ actually became part of a Gene Hackman Cold War era movie scene called: ‘The Package.’ It was the total ease of walking distance accessibility to places like restaurants, shops, temp offices, CTA station, parks and beaches that was one of the more lasting impressions I had while living in Uptown. 

Erik Stonikas of YoChicago explores the walkability of far northside neighborhood Uptown:

 

Magnolia: The Migrant Magnet

 

Somehow I managed to scrape enough savings to move into an apartment building owned by German immigrants on Magnolia Street just south of Sunnyside the following year in 1975. The rent was like only $79 dollars a month at the time. The neighborhood street during that period, was faithfully portrayed in William Brashler’s novel: ‘City Dogs’ where he described the exhausted buildings as being crammed with migrants. From a chapter excerpt:

“And there were kids, thousands of kids, everywhere on any block you went down, twenty-four in his own building alone, kids like from down home just running and screaming but with no woods, no grass, no real dirt to soak up their noise. Donald Ray also couldn't get used to the drinking, more alkies than he had ever seen, and winos, the young ones and old ones, throwing their bottles in the street and on the sidewalks, where the kids broke them into smithereens and stamped them into the dirt along with the bottle tops and cigarette butts. A person couldn't run anywhere barefoot, not up here, or his feet would come up looking like they'd been caught in a sausage grinder.”

Uptown Chicago Novel: City Dogs by William Brashler 

Another memorable depiction of Chicago’s Uptown during this time period, was made by acclaimed film maker Haskel Wexler’s political film Medium Cool where he shot a scene near Sunnyside and Clifton. From the Chicago Reader:

"Entire blocks in Uptown are inhabited by the former residents of a single Alabama or West Virginia county," wrote reporter Clarus Backes. "Apartment buildings are filled with members of a single mountain clan." Wexler walked around Uptown, taking it all in. "Almost any day of the year," wrote Backes, "along Wilson or Montrose or Kenmore or a dozen other streets, there are children of school age standing about, talking together, looking for something to do, and nobody knows who they are.

The lost Chicago of Medium Cool

 

Although Magnolia at the time was a hotbed of gang activity such as the notorious Gaylords, I hardly ever encountered them there on the streets. In fact, I had more run-ins with the Chicago police constantly suspecting me as a gangbanger. From the Gaylords website:

“To look at this Uptown Chicago street corner today, you would never know that it was once home to one of the most insane Gaylord sets: The Sunnyside and Magnolia Gaylords. In the 1970s through the late 1990s, this neighborhood known as one of Chicago's poorest and toughest neighborhoods, was home to one of the most proud and loyal Gaylord Nation sets. These pictures do not tell the real story. They can only give you a point of reference. Back in the day, these buildings were falling apart, and were covered with Gaylord taggings and murals. Today, you see young well-to-do mother's pushing expensive baby carriages down the sidewalks of this once Uptown Chicago slum, and you wonder if these new residence know the blood that was shed defending these corners, these corners of Sunnyside and Magnolia.”

The Sunnyside and Magnolia Gaylords

The relentless army of roaches and continual day and night Mexican music from the nearby tenants finally forced me to move away from there and settle into the more benign and quaint Norman apartment building on Beacon Street. It was a residential tonic compared to where I just came from.

I moved away from Uptown after a few years there, and eventually settled out of Chicago.

Although the very mention of the neighborhood's name at the time provoked an emotional repulsion, it still had even in its stark seamy grittiness, a certain kind of sublime transparent honesty about it making it in a way, strangely beautiful and for me any ways…uniquely memorable. 




While researching material for this Uptown blog, I happen to come across an exceptional noted photographer named Bob Rehak whose passion for his craft is vividly reflected in an Uptown portfolio blog and a published book which received rave reviews. Its an exquisite illustrative example of how both image and word can be captured from a neighborhood’s era giving it a timeless power and meaning. As one Urban History Association describes it:

After forty years in storage, the ‘discovery’ of Rehak’s Uptown portfolio created a viral sensation. Now, the work represents perhaps the most searing, comprehensive, and complex portrait of a struggling urban community in the mid-Seventies, defying any classification as simple as ‘gritty realism.’

On a whirlwind Chicago book promotional tour, he stopped by Chicago Tonight's studios for a television interview that is really worth watching:

"A passion for photography and curiosity about the neighborhood drew Chicagoan Bob Rehak to Uptown. Over the course of four years, he captured what everyday life was like for neighborhood residents during the mid-1970s. Those photographs—now 40 years old—are being shared in a new book, "Uptown: Portrait of a Chicago Neighborhood in the Mid-1970s." Rehak shares his experiences documenting a diverse Chicago neighborhood with us."

Taking a Look at Uptown 40 Years Ago 

 

 Related links: 

Depicting Survival in a Marginalized Multiracial Community: The Mid-Seventies Street Photography of Bob Rehak  

The Battle for Uptown

Uptown Chicago History 

Uptown's moment as a 'Hillbilly Heaven'

Hillbilly Heaven: Chicago’s Other Migration from the South 

Hank Williams Village: Chicago’s Best Urban Plan That Never Happened

 Uptown Update

From Diversity to Unity: Southern and Appalachian Migrants in Uptown Chicago

Uptown Chicago Wikipedia 

 

Personal Satellite Technology Is Here

The future of personal satellite technology is here – are we ready for it?

Elizabeth Garbee, Arizona State University and Andrew Maynard, Arizona State University
Satellites used to be the exclusive playthings of rich governments and wealthy corporations. But increasingly, as space becomes more democratized, these sophisticated technologies are coming within reach of ordinary people. Just like drones before them, miniature satellites are beginning to fundamentally transform our conceptions of who gets to do what up above our heads.
As a recent report from the National Academy of Sciences highlights, these satellites hold tremendous potential for making satellite-based science more accessible than ever before. However, as the cost of getting your own satellite in orbit plummets, the risks of irresponsible use grow.
The question here is no longer “Can we?” but “Should we?” What are the potential downsides of having a slice of space densely populated by equipment built by people not traditionally labeled as “professionals”? And what would the responsible and beneficial development and use of this technology actually look like?
Some of the answers may come from a nonprofit organization that has been building and launching amateur satellites for nearly 50 years.

Just a few inches across and ready for orbit. Thuvt, CC BY-SA

The technology we’re talking about

Having your own personal satellite launched into orbit might sound like an idea straight out of science fiction. But over the past few decades a unique class of satellites has been created that fits the bill: CubeSats.
The “Cube” here simply refers to the satellite’s shape. The most common CubeSat (the so-called “1U” satellite) is a 10 cm (roughly 4 inches) cube, so small that a single CubeSat could easily be mistaken for a paperweight on your desk. These mini, modular satellites can fit in a launch vehicle’s formerly “wasted space.” Multiples can be deployed in combination for more complex missions than could be achieved by one CubeSat alone.
Within their compact bodies these minute satellites are able to house sensors and communications receivers/transmitters that enable operators to study the Earth from space, as well as space around the Earth.
They’re primarily designed for Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – an easily accessible region of space from around 200 to 800 miles above the Earth, where human-tended missions like the Hubble Space Telescope and the International Space Station (ISS) hang out. But they can attain more distant orbits; NASA plans for most of its future Earth-escaping payloads (to the moon and Mars especially) to carry CubeSats.

Because they’re so small and light, it costs much less to get a CubeSat into Earth orbit than a traditional communication or GPS satellite. For instance, a research group here at Arizona State University recently claimed their developmental “femtosats” (especially small CubeSats) could cost as little as US$3,000 to put in orbit. This decrease in cost is allowing researchers, hobbyists and even elementary school groups to put simple instruments into LEO, by piggybacking onto rocket launches, or even having them deployed from the ISS.
The first CubeSat was created in the early 2000s, as a way of enabling CalPoly and Stanford graduate students to design, build, test and operate a spacecraft with similar capabilities to the USSR’s Sputnik.
Since then, NASA, the National Reconnaissance Office and even Boeing have all launched and operated CubeSats. There are more than 130 currently operational in orbit. The NASA Educational Launch of Nano Satellite (ELaNa) program, which offers free launches for educational groups and science missions, is now open to U.S. nonprofit corporations as well.
Clearly, satellites are not just for rocket scientists anymore.

Pre-K through 8th grade students at St. Thomas More Cathedral School in Arlington, Virginia designed, built and tested a CubeSat that was deployed in space. NASA, CC BY

Thinking inside the box

The National Academy of Sciences report emphasizes CubeSats' importance in scientific discovery and the training of future space scientists and engineers. Yet it also acknowledges that widespread deployment of LEO CubeSats isn’t risk-free.
The greatest concern the authors raise is space debris – pieces of “junk” that orbit the earth, with the potential to cause serious damage if they collide with operational units, including the ISS.
Currently, there aren’t many CubeSats and they’re tracked closely. Yet as LEO opens up to more amateur satellites, they may pose an increasing threat. As the report authors point out, even near-misses might lead to the “creation of an onerous regulatory framework and affect the future disposition of science CubeSats.”
More broadly, the report authors focus on factors that might impede greater use of CubeSat technologies. These include regulations around earth-space radio communications, possible impacts of International Traffic in Arms Regulations (which govern import and export of defense-related articles and services in the U.S.), and potential issues around extra-terrestrial contamination.
But what about the rest of us? How can we be sure that hobbyists and others aren’t launching their own “spy” satellites, or (intentionally or not) placing polluting technologies into LEO, or even deploying low-cost CubeSat networks that could be hijacked and used nefariously?
As CubeSat researchers are quick to point out, these are far-fetched scenarios. But they suggest that now’s the time to ponder unexpected and unintended possible consequences of more people than ever having access to their own small slice of space. In an era when you can simply buy a CubeSat kit off the shelf, how can we trust the satellites over our heads were developed with good intentions by people who knew what they were doing?
Some “expert amateurs” in the satellite game could provide some inspiration for how to proceed responsibly.

Modular CubeSats deployed from ISS. NASA Johnson, CC BY-NC

Guidance from some experienced amateurs

In 1969, the Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation (AMSAT) was created in order to foster ham radio enthusiasts' participation in space research and communication. It continued the efforts, begun in 1961, by Project OSCAR – a U.S.-based group that built and launched the very first nongovernmental satellite just four years after Sputnik.
As an organization of volunteers, AMSAT was putting “amateur” satellites in orbit decades before the current CubeSat craze. And over time, its members have learned a thing or two about responsibility.
Here, open-source development has been a central principle. Within the organization, AMSAT has a philosophy of open sourcing everything – making technical data on all aspects of their satellites fully available to everyone in the organization, and when possible, the public. According to a member of the team responsible for FOX 1-A, AMSAT’s first CubeSat:

This means that it would be incredibly difficult to sneak something by us … there’s no way to smuggle explosives or an energy emitter into an amateur satellite when everyone has access to the designs and implementation.

However, they’re more cautious about sharing info with nonmembers, as the organization guards against others developing the ability to hijack and take control of their satellites.
This form of “self-governance” is possible within long-standing amateur organizations that, over time, are able to build a sense of responsibility to community members, as well as society more generally.

AMSAT has a long history as a collaborative community. Jeff Davis, CC BY

How does responsible development evolve?

But what happens when new players emerge, who don’t have deep roots within the existing culture?
Hobbyist and student “new kids on the block” are gaining access to technologies without being part of a longstanding amateur establishment. They are still constrained by funders, launch providers and a tapestry of regulations – all of which rein in what CubeSat developers can and cannot do. But there is a danger they’re ill-equipped to think through potential unintended consequences.
What these unintended consequences might be is admittedly far from clear. Certainly, CubeSat developers would argue it’s hard to imagine these tiny satellites causing substantial physical harm. Yet we know innovators can be remarkably creative with taking technologies in unexpected directions. Think of something as seemingly benign as the cellphone – we have microfinance and text-based social networking at one end of the spectrum, improvised explosive devices at the other.
This is where a culture of social responsibility around CubeSats becomes important – not simply for ensuring that physical risks are minimized (and good practices are adhered to), but also to engage with a much larger community in anticipating and managing less obvious consequences of the technology.
This is not an easy task. Yet the evidence from AMSAT and other areas of technology development suggest that responsible amateur communities can and do emerge around novel technologies.
For instance, see the diy-bio community, where hobbyists work in advanced community biotech labs. Their growing community commitment to safety and responsibility is highlighting how amateurs can embrace responsibility in research and innovation. A similar commitment is seen within open-source software and hardware communities, such as the members of the Linux Foundation.
The challenge here, of course, is ensuring that what an amateur community considers to be responsible, actually is. Here’s where there needs to be a much wider public conversation that extends beyond government agencies and scientific communities to include students, hobbyists, and anyone who may potentially stand to be affected by the use of CubeSat technology.

Elizabeth Garbee, Ph.D. Student in the Human and Social Dimensions of Science and Technology, Arizona State University and Andrew Maynard, Director, Risk Innovation Lab, Arizona State University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.