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"Sovranità Digitale": Due buone notizie dall'Europa
by Damiano Verzulli May 16, 2022

May 16, 2022

Sembra che i commerciali di NextCloud stiano facendo un ottimo lavoro.... => 13/05/2022 - "Data protection: Microsoft 365 banned in Baden-Württemberg’s schools. Suitable alternatives exist!" https://nextcloud.com/blog/data-protection-microsoft-365-banned-in-baden-wu… => 26/04/2022 - "GDPR compliant collaboration coming to 750K students and teachers in Sweden" https://nextcloud.com/blog/gdpr-compliant-collaboration-coming-to-750k-stud… Bye, DV -- Damiano Verzulli e-mail: damiano(a)verzulli.it --- possible?ok:while(!possible){open_mindedness++} --- "...I realized that free software would not generate the kind of income that was needed. Maybe in USA or Europe, you may be able to get a well paying job as a free software developer, but not here [in Africa]..." -- Guido Sohne - 1973-2008 http://ole.kenic.or.ke/pipermail/skunkworks/2008-April/005989.html

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Call for Papers INDL-5 "Features and Futures of Digital Labor", 3-5 November 2022, Athens, Greece
by Antonio Casilli May 16, 2022

May 16, 2022

Salve a tutt*, Sono lieto di annunciare che il 5° Convegno del nostro International Network on Digital Labor (INDL) si terrà ad Atene dal 3 al 5 novembre 2022. Organizzato dall'Università nazionale e capodistriana di Atene, dal mio gruppo di ricerca DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor) a Parigi, dall'Organizzazione internazionale del lavoro di Ginevra e dall'Istituto del lavoro della Confederazione generale dei lavoratori greci (GSEE), il colloquio si concentrerà sull'economia delle piattaforme, sull'automazione, sull'impatto della crisi sanitaria sul telelavoro, sul micro-lavoro, sulla soggettività al lavoro e sul ruolo dei sindacati nell'era dell'IA e della gestione algoritmica. Spero vorrete condividere con chiunque sia interessato l'annuncio su questa pagina web: https://diplab.eu/indl-5-features-and-futures-of-digital-labor-3-5-november… Di seguito, il bando di concorso (deadline per inviare una proposta: 15 luglio 2022). Cari saluti, Antonio --- INDL-5: FEATURES AND FUTURES OF DIGITAL LABOR • Department of Sociology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens • Department of Economic and Social Sciences, Telecom Paris, Polytechnic Institute of Paris • DiPLab (Digital Platform Labor), Telecom Paris, Polytechnic Institute of Paris • International Labor Organization • Labor Institute of the General Confederation of Greek Workers The INDL (International Network on Digital Labor) project started as ENDL (the “E” standing for “European”) 5 years ago with an inaugural meeting in Paris. Since then, it has expanded internationally, and its members have organized larger conferences in Paris (2019), Toronto (2019), Milan (2020), and Edinburgh (2021). INDL’s next conference will take place on November 3-5, 2022 in Athens and will be the first entirely in-person meeting since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. The network encourages the participation of researchers in all academic stages and from any part of the world. Call for submissions The concept of digital labor is central to the digital transformation of society. New jobs like online freelancing, gig-work, and remote crowdwork are made possible by digital intermediaries. Under the impetus of work from home, conventional jobs have changed to teleconferencing and have introduced algorithmic management. Despite the pervasiveness of this phenomenon, the notion of digital labor remains elusive. Different disciplines and fields in the social and economic sciences, political theory, law, and philosophy have attempted to capture the attributes of labor in the digital age. These academic endeavors take place against the backdrop of the rise of platformization of work and the introduction of new activities that produce data and meanings for large sociotechnical systems. Thus, digital labor not only necessitates the transformation of the traditional concepts and methodologies we employ to study this essential human activity but also calls for a new understanding of labor relations to overcome the looming threats of unfair remuneration, job instability, harsh working conditions, lack of social grounding and, very often, self-alienation. This conference aims to map these new working environments by connecting different disciplines and fostering dialogue around the nature of digital work, as well as the possible futures that academic research may help bring about. PRACTICAL INFO Venue: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece Dates: 3-5 November 2022 ➢ Please send your abstract (max. 300 words excluding title) to: contact(a)indl.network ➢ Deadline for submission: 15/07/22 ➢ Acceptance notification: 10/08/22 For registration: TBA TOPICS A non-exhaustive list of topics to be addressed by the conference: 1. New forms of digital labor a. Atypical work and platforms b. New types of contracts c. Digital labor platforms and labor as a service d. Platformization of remote work e. Covid-19 and the great “work-from-home experiment” 2. The transformation of the working subject a. Issues of personal identity (fragmentation, self-alienation) b. Emergent classes (digital nomads, precariat, cybertariat etc.) 3. Digital labor and economic theory a. Digital labor and value theory b. Surveillance as value-producing mechanism c. Cryptomining and new forms of capital accumulation d. From commodification to ‘assetization’ of work 4. Digital labor and inequalities 5. Digital labor and the Global Souths a. Coloniality b. Global supply networks c. Migrations d. Labor arbitrage e. Global workers’ competition 6. Digital labor and career development a. What jobs are available to former platform workers? b. Competency development c. Formal and informal skills d. Workforce polarization e. Platform labor and unemployment/underemployment 7. Organizing digital workers a. Negotiating the algorithm b. Unions and platforms c. Platform cooperativism d. Global digital activism and platform labor e. Labor regulations and digital markets f. Patterns of professional regulation g. Emerging working subjectivities SCIENTIFIC COMMITTEE Paola Tubaro (CNRS), Antonio Casilli (Télécom Paris, Polytechnic Institute of Paris), Clément Le Ludec (Télécom Paris, Polytechnic Institute of Paris), Milagros Miceli (The DAIR Institute & Weizenbaum-Institut), Julian Posada (University of Toronto & Yale University), Uma Rani (International Labor Organization), Manolis Patiniotis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Iraklis Vogiatzis (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Valia Aranitou (University of Crete), Christos Goulas (Labor Institute of the General Confederation of Greek Workers), Manos Spiridakis (University of the Peloponnese).

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Re: [nexa] alfabetizzazione digitale ... ai docenti (Damiano Verzulli)
by alessandro marzocchi May 16, 2022

May 16, 2022

Damiano, grazie per la disponibilità, sono cresciuto col "lei" ma nelle varie liste ho imparato il "tu", a darlo e riceverlo. Ho sperimentato le difficoltà che racconti, ma la testa è dura ed i pericoli che vedo sono apocalittici, mi riferisco agli ultimi msg su emozioni numerizzate. Da migliaia di anni e più ci domandiamo chi siamo, ora il digitale ci sbatte in faccia una realtà dura: forse non siamo così esclusivi, forse non siamo "la misura di tutte le cose" più semplicemente "misuriamo le cose", penso a Protagora, filosofo appena più anziano di Socrate. Come siamo apparsi potremmo anche scomparire ed il digitale potrebbe essere la leva; intanto ci mette ai margini, ci fa vedere che non sono soltanto nostre facoltà che eravamo convinti appartenessero soltanto a noi. Temo davvero che possa essere già tardi, ma scrivi bene: il cuore continua a battere e la testa non si arrende. Vediamo se oltre a te - ancora grazie 1000! - arrivano altri aiuti, altre disponibilità, di sicuro non è cosa che possiamo fare in due, intanto è molto bella la proposta di Guido Noto La Diega col quale mi scuso per averlo ribattezzato. Auguri cordiali. Duccio (Alessandro Marzocchi) Il giorno ven 13 mag 2022 alle ore 13:52 <nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it> ha scritto: > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 13 May 2022 13:12:49 +0200 > From: Damiano Verzulli <damiano(a)verzulli.it> > ... ... > Cionondimento.... semmai lei (@alessandro marzocchi) o chiunque > altro/altra avesse tempo e voglia di organizzare qualcosa e mi ritenesse > "utile" alla causa... il mio cuore continua comunque a battere in quella > direzione (il cuore, sob!, non riesco a spegnerlo!).Ma saro' > necessariamente "gregario". Non "maverick".... > Un caro saluto, > DV > [1] https://scuola.linux.it/ > [2] https://lists.linux.it/listinfo/scuola > >

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U.S, E.U will seek to head off subsidy race over chip production, official says | Reuters
by Luigi Scorca May 16, 2022

May 16, 2022

https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-eu-will-seek-head-off-subsidy-race-ov… Luigi

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98° Nexa Lunch Seminar | 25 Maggio 2022 | Modalità Telematica
by Nexa Media May 16, 2022

May 16, 2022

Gentilissimi, vi segnaliamo che il 98° Nexa Lunch Seminar, /*"Disconnessioni digitali attiviste: repertori, limiti, orizzonti"*/, con ospite *Emiliano Treré *(Cardiff University), si svolgerà *mercoledì 25 maggio*, dalle ore 13.00 alle ore 14.00, in modalità telematica, utilizzando la piattaforma di videoconferenza BigBlueButton. Sarà possibile partecipare al seminario connettendosi al seguente indirizzo: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent Nexa Center for Internet and Society Newsletter Se non visualizzi correttamente questo messaggio clicca qui <https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-98> NEXA 98° Nexa Lunch Seminar Mercoledì 25 maggio 2022, ore 13.00 - 14.00 https://nexa.polito.it/lunch-98 Disconnessioni digitali attiviste: repertori, limiti, orizzonti Speaker Emiliano Treré (Cardiff University) This event will be webcast live: https://nexa.polito.it/nexa-hangout-on-air *PARTECIPA ONLINE ALL'INCONTRO: https://didattica.polito.it/VClass/NexaEvent* Nel campo della comunicazione digitale e dei movimenti sociali, la letteratura ha teso a privilegiare una lettura degli attivisti come attori sociali iper-connessi che sfruttano al meglio le possibilità del digitale. Ma cosa succederebbe se invertissimo lo sguardo privilegiando invece le forme e i repertori di *disconnessione digitale*? Sulla base dei risultati di vari progetti su disconnessione e attivismo nel nord e sud globale, in questo breve intervento si rifletterà sul significato e l’impatto delle pratiche di *disconnessione digitale attiviste*. Nella prima parte, verranno contestualizzate queste pratiche all’interno delle recenti riflessioni su azione collettiva e tecnologie della comunicazione, distinguendo tra disconnessione digitale come repressione, resistenza e performance. Nella seconda parte, verranno quindi illustrate pratiche di disconnessione individuale e collettiva di gig workers osservate in Messico, Cina, Spagna e Italia. In particolare, si porranno in risalto tre tipi di pratiche: *disconnessione solidale, antisommossa e alternativa*. Nella conclusione dell’intervento si evidenzieranno infine i privilegi e le diseguaglianze che definiscono le scelte e la possibilità stessa di disconnetterci nella società digitale. BIOGRAFIA - e informazioni supplementari [Lunch98] *Emiliano TRERÉ* è Professore in Data Agency e Media Ecologies nella Scuola di Giornalismo, Media e Cultura della Università di Cardiff in Galles. È un autore ampiamente citato nell’ambito dell’attivismo digitale e negli studi critici sui dati, gli algoritmi e la disconnessione digitale, con particolare attenzione al Sud globale. Ha co-fondato l'iniziativa “Big Data from the South” e co-dirige il Data Justice Lab. Il suo libro Hybrid Media Activism (Routledge, 2019) ha vinto l'Outstanding Book Award dell'ICA Interest Group 'Activism, Communication and Social Justice'. *Letture consigliate e link utili:* * Kaun, A. and Treré, E. (2018). Repression, resistance and lifestyle: charting (dis)connection and activism in times of accelerated capitalism. /Social Movement Studies/, 19(5-6), pp. 697-715. LINK <https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14742837.2018.1555752> * Natale, S. and Treré, E. 2020. Vinyl won't save us: reframing disconnection as engagement. /Media, Culture and Society/ 42(4), pp. 626-633. LINK <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0163443720914027> * Treré, E. 2021. Intensification, discovery and abandonment: unearthing global ecologies of dis/connection in pandemic times. /Convergence/, 27(6), pp. 1663–1677. LINK <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13548565211036804> * Yu, Z., Treré, E. and Bonini, T. 2022. The emergence of algorithmic solidarity: unveiling mutual aid practices and resistance among Chinese delivery workers. /Media International Australia/, 183: 1, pp. 107-123. LINK <https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1329878X221074793> * Dr. Emiliano Treré on digital activism, democracy and disconnection: VIDEO <https://www.diggitmagazine.com/videos/emiliano-trer%C3%A9-digital-activism> Che cosa sono il Centro Nexa e i cicli di incontri “Mercoledì di Nexa” e “Nexa Lunch Seminar” <https://www.facebook.com/nexa.center/> <https://twitter.com/nexacenter> <https://www.youtube.com/user/NexaCenter> <https://www.instagram.com/nexa_center/> <https://www.linkedin.com/company/3054864/admin/> #nexalunchseminar <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23nexalunchseminar&src=typd> #EmilianoTreré <https://twitter.com/EmilianoTrere> #CardiffUniversitySchoolofJournalismMediaandCulture <https://twitter.com/CardiffJomec> #CardiffUniversity <https://twitter.com/cardiffuni> Il Centro Nexa su Internet & Società del Politecnico di Torino (Dipartimento di Automatica e Informatica) dal 2006 è un centro di ricerca indipendente e interdisciplinare che, in collaborazione con l'Università di Torino, studia Internet (e più in generale le Tecnologie digitali) e i suoi rapporti con la società. Maggiori informazioni all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/about. Durante i “*Mercoledì di Nexa*”, che si tengono *ogni 2° mercoledì del mese* alle *ore 18 in punto*, il Centro Nexa su Internet e Società apre le sue porte non solo agli esperti e a tutti coloro i quali lavorano con Internet, ma anche a semplici appassionati e cittadini. Il ciclo di incontri intende approfondire, con un linguaggio preciso ma accessibile, i temi legati alla Rete: motori di ricerca, Creative Commons, social networks, open source/software libero, neutralità della rete, libertà di espressione, privacy, file sharing, big e open data, smart cities e molto altro. Al centro di quasi tutti gli incontri un ospite pronto a dialogare con i direttori del Centro Nexa, il Prof. Juan Carlos De Martin del Politecnico di Torino e il Prof. Marco Ricolfi dell'Università di Torino, nonché lo staff e i Fellows del Centro Nexa. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa, incluso un elenco di tutti i “Mercoledì” passati, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/mercoledi. Si segnala inoltre che dal maggio 2012 *ogni 4° mercoledì* del mese *dalle ore 13 alle ore 14* il Centro Nexa organizza anche i "*Nexa Lunch Seminar*". Una lista di tutti i “Lunch Seminar” passati è disponibile all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/lunch-seminars. See our events calendar <http://nexa.polito.it/events> if you're curious about future luncheons, discussions, lectures, and conferences not listed in this email. Our events are free and open to the public, unless otherwise noted. Responsabile Comunicazione Centro Nexa su Internet & Società: *Anita Botta*, tel: +39 011 090 7219, Mob: +39 347 131 3903, anita.botta(a)polito.it. Maggiori informazioni sui Mercoledì di Nexa e i Nexa Lunch Seminar, sono disponibili all'indirizzo: http://nexa.polito.it/events. Weekly Events Newsletter. Sign up <http://nexa.polito.it/mailing-lists> to receive this newsletter if this email was forwarded to you. To manage your subscription preferences, please click here <https://server-nexa.polito.it/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nexa>. Connect & get involved: Jobs, internships, and more <http://nexa.polito.it/get-involved>. Cordiali saluti, -- Anita Botta Communication Manager Nexa Center for Internet & Society Politecnico di Torino – DAUIN Corso Duca degli Abruzzi, 24 - 10129 Torino web: https://nexa.polito.it/ mail: anita.botta(a)polito.it tel: 011 090 7219

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Re: [nexa] the most i ()mportant AI law you’ve never heard of (MIT Technology Review)
by Giuseppe Attardi May 16, 2022

May 16, 2022

La proposta cosiddetta European AI Act è stata seriamente criticata dall’associazione CLAIRE, che raggruppa oltre 3000 ricercatori europei del settore. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/1… La proposta parte da una definizione sbagliata di AI, che includerebbe qualunque sistema faccia uso di tecniche statistiche. Inoltre impone requisiti impossibili, ad esempio che sia garantito che “Training, validation and testing data sets shall be relevant, representative, free of errors and complete.” Poi richiede che ciascun paese investa “risorse umane adeguate” in un organismo nazionale incaricato di validare e verificare qualunque prodotto rientri nella categoria precedentemete definita di sistema di AI. Ciò significa tra cento e duecento persone, con una spesa che supera di gran lunga gli investimenti che gli stessi paesi farebbero nella ricerca e sviluppo di tecnologie AI. La normativa sembra minata da una contraddizione di fondo: si afferma in vario modo che su sistemi di AI non si può fare affidamento e dall’altra che attraverso un processo di certifucazione li si possa fare diventare tali. La direzione presa dall’EC di concentrarsi sulla regolamentazione, trascurando di investire nello sviluppo per padroneggiare la tecnologia, finirà per risultare perdente. Già adesso la produzione scientifica in AI è esplosa a livello mindiale, con oltre 300 articoli pubblicati su Arxive ogni giorno (giorno) e oltre 100 miliardi investiti a livello mondiale (vedi rapporto di Stanford su AI Index https://aiindex.stanford.edu/report/) La EC dopo aver promesso ingentiinvestimenti nella ricerca nel settore, si è finora impegnata per poche decine di milioni. Eppure la EC si è invece mossa rapidamente per investire 20 miliardi per rilanciare la produzione europea di semiconduttori, aggirando persino le sue stesse normative contro gli aiuti di stato. Ma lì è intervenuta la lobby dei costruttori di automobili, lamentandosi dei rischi di perdere indipendenza produttiva. Purtroppo aziende di AI o tanto meno di informatica sufficientemente influenti a livello europeo non ce ne sono. Pertanto l’Europa finirà per restare indietro in quella che è la terza GPT (General Purpose Technology), che cambierà drasticamente il nostro futuro. Le aziende Big Tech, che adesso già dominano, aumenteranno il loro dominio mediante l’AI, come spiega Moshe Vardi sulle CACM https://m-cacm.acm.org/magazines/2022/3/258894-acm-ethics-and-corporate-beh… Purtroppo stiamo perdendo un altro treno, come tanti altri che abbiamo perso in informatica (come ci ricorda spesso ARM), per mancanza di determinazione e di coraggio. — Beppe > On 15 May 2022, at 05:58, nexa-request(a)server-nexa.polito.it wrote: > > Date: Sat, 14 May 2022 22:36:20 +0200 > From: maurizio lana <maurizio.lana(a)uniupo.it> > To: nexa(a)server-nexa.polito.it > Subject: [nexa] the most i ()mportant AI law you’ve never heard of ( > MIT Technology Review) > Message-ID: <5f973b9b-3d33-140e-df3f-5a152ad60e39(a)uniupo.it> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed > > segnalo questo articolo dell'ultima uscita di MIT Technology Review: > https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/05/13/1052223/guide-ai-act-europe/ > intitolato "A quick guide to the most important AI law you’ve never > heard of". > questa "AI law", chiamata nell'articolo "EU AI Act", è se non erro > questa cosa qui: > /Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council > laying down harmonised rules on Artificial Intelligence (Artificial > Intelligence Act) and amending certain Union legislative acts/. 2021. > https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52021PC0206&… > <https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/IT/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52021PC0206&…>. > > non mi sembra che se ne sia ancora parlato qui, ciò che mi colpisce è che > 1) come il GDPR avrà in prospettiva futura effetti anche fuori dell'Europa e > 2) che pur con tanti limiti e difetti che ci si possono trovare [chi non > fa non sbaglia], l'EU (Parlamento e Commissione) è l'unico soggetto > internazionale che opera legislativamente su queste materie dal punto di > vista di un interesse pubblico > Maurizio

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Authoritarian Regimes’ AI Innovation Advantage | Harvard Magazine
by Alberto Cammozzo May 15, 2022

May 15, 2022

"greater mass surveillance drives economic growth." <https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2022/05/right-now-authoritarian-regimes-art…> For the past decade, China has led the world in advanced-facial recognition systems. Chinese companies dominate the rankings of the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Face Recognition Vendor Test, considered the accepted standard for judging the accuracy of these systems, and Chinese research papers on the subject are cited almost twice as often as American ones. Many experts recognize the importance of facial-recognition and other artificial-intelligence applications for promoting future economic growth through productivity gains, which makes understanding how China came to dominate this field a competitive concern. And after years of research, Harvard assistant professor of economics David Yang believes he’s discovered an explanation for the Chinese companies’ advantage. In a recent National Bureau of Economic Research working paper, Yang and his colleagues found that authoritarian states like China may have an inherent and decisive advantage over liberal democracies in facial-recognition innovation. Their secret? The flow of massive amounts of surveillance data to private AI companies that develop facial-recognition software for local police departments. Like all AI systems, facial-recognition systems depend on substantial quantities of training data to learn how to recognize faces: the more data they process, the more reliable they become. The researchers’ findings suggest Chinese AI firms use surveillance data to develop sophisticated facial-recognition algorithms that can later be repurposed for commercial applications like more effective targeted advertisements and tracking of customer behavior in stores, which creates a feedback loop where greater mass surveillance drives economic growth. It’s a startling conclusion that will likely have significant repercussions for the commercialization of AI systems in the United States and Europe. Yang’s findings suggest that policymakers in the West need to start considering the economic tradeoffs that come with strong protections for personal data rather than focusing solely on the value of privacy. In fact, the research suggests that overly strong data protections may turn out to be inadvertent anti-industrial policies that starve fledgling AI companies of the data they need to innovate. Unless these tensions are addressed soon, the United States may find itself far behind in the race to build one of the most important technologies of the twenty-first century. At the core of China’s burgeoning facial-recognition industry is an Orwellian mass surveillance system unparalled in scope and scale. More than half of the world’s roughly one billion surveillance cameras are within China’s borders, and nine of the world’s 10 most surveilled cities on a cameras-per-capita basis are Chinese. If Chinese companies are able to tap into this video surveillance network through government contracts they should be able to develop superior algorithms and parlay these systems into commercial applications. “If you want to do any sort of customer identification or personalized advertisements, then being able to identify who comes into a shop for the first time and who is a repeat customer is super important information,” says Yang. “From an algorithm perspective, these commercial applications sound very similar to what a police department might want to do on its own. So once a company uses government data to improve its facial-recognition system’s accuracy rate, it’s natural that it would also use it to help retailers make predictions about their customers.” It’s an intuitive theory, but until Yang and his colleagues collected the data there was scant evidence to support the hypothesis. The researchers started by analyzing publicly available listings of Chinese facial-recognition companies and their major products, which the government requires to be reported to its Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. They identified approximately 1,000 companies that had received a contract to supply local police departments with facial-recognition software, which presumably came with access to local surveillance video data. The researchers’ next step was to determine whether the volume of video data received by these firms correlated with their output of commercial facial-recognition products. They sorted the contracts by the number of surveillance cameras in the police district and labeled contracts with above average numbers of cameras “data-rich” and those with below average numbers of cameras “data-scarce.” There may be “economic tradeoffs that come with strong protections for personal data….” If access to data-rich government contracts didn’t influence the development of commercial facial-recognition software, the researchers would have expected to see a drop in commercial products as firms reallocated engineering talent to service the government contract. But they found the opposite. Firms that secured a data-rich facial-recognition contract with police departments almost immediately produced more facial-recognition software for government /and/ commercial applications than those with a data-scarce contract. This suggests that the government data boost AI innovation because they are applicable to both government and commercial applications. “Our speculation is that this happens because of algorithm spillover,” says Yang. “The companies don’t need to decide between allocating engineering resources to government or commercial applications because the same algorithm can be applied in multiple places at the same time.” The findings have important implications for how the United States and other western countries think about the tradeoff between data privacy and economic policies. While Yang is hesitant to draw any normative conclusions from this work, he says that it does show how one-sided the debate on AI and data ethics has become in the West. By focusing only on the privacy implications of facial-recognition technology, policymakers have ignored the economic effects of denying data to AI firms that need it to develop their technology. As a result, facial- recognition firms have flourished in authoritarian countries like China that lack robust data-privacy protections—and languished in the United States and Europe. Yang says the key to unlocking similar AI innovation in the West may involve reframing access to government data as key public infrastructure comparable to roads or bridges without sacrificing basic privacy protections and civil liberties. “A lot of privacy-protection policies could have anti-industrial consequences because it hurts industries that rely on that data,” he says. “I’m not suggesting whether these policies are or are not justified, but there is an asymmetry in the discussion that only focuses on the value of privacy. Once the economic value is taken into consideration, we can start to think about whether the civil-liberty costs outweigh the economic potential of these innovations.”

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Norway to replace BankID on mobile with biometric apps for improved security | Biometric Update
by Alberto Cammozzo May 15, 2022

May 15, 2022

<https://www.biometricupdate.com/202205/norway-to-replace-bankid-on-mobile-w…> Norway says it plans to replace the digital ID authentication platform BankID <https://www.bankid.no/en/private/> with new apps that will require either face or fingerprint biometrics, and passwords or PINs in some cases, for users to log in and access banking services online, reports NRK <https://www.nrk.no/sorlandet/bankid-pa-mobil-blir-historie_-_-vil-gjore-hve…>. Moves to transition from the BankID to a biometric system were disclosed by an official of Norwegian national payment system BankAxept, Jan Bjerved, in an interview with the country’s public broadcaster, according to a Google translation of the report. The official says replacing the BankID, which has been in use since 2009, is not only meant to streamline the way people can verify their digital identity online, but it will also reduce the time required to log in to 10 seconds, down from 30. The new system will also enhance user security. Bjerved says it is not yet clear when the old system will be phased out but that may likely happen next year, although the intention is to allow a smooth transition from the old to the new system, writes The Local. The article also cites an official from the security department of the National Communications Authority (NKOM), Svein Scheie, as saying another reason for transiting from the BankID system is that the technology on which it was build has become obsolete. Scheie says the system was designed for mobile devices with physical SIM cards, but many mobile devices these days do not function with traditional SIMs. “Many mobile companies are moving away from physical SIM cards. Then it will not be possible to use BankID on mobile as it is today,” Scheie says. Meanwhile, Scheie adds that the physical version of the BankID will remain in use for those who want to. BankID was reported late last year to have 4.3 million users <https://www.biometricupdate.com/202112/e2-8m-funding-for-startup-mobais-bio…>, many of them interacting with the app on a daily basis. The software company behind the app, Vipps, said around the same time that it would integrate biometrics to enforce different levels of authorization <https://www.biometricupdate.com/202111/digital-parenting-minimized-fraud-an…>, as the app’s use is so commonplace people may let friends or relatives use it.

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Curiosità cinesi
by don Luca Peyron May 15, 2022

May 15, 2022

Forse solo un titolo, o forse un ulteriore tassello di un trend https://www.ilmessaggero.it/AMP/tecnologia/cina_diga_stampa_3d_intelligenza… Buona lettura e buona domenica Dl

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articoli sulla rivista Gli Asini
by J.C. DE MARTIN May 15, 2022

May 15, 2022

Non mi sembra sia già stato segnalato in lista l'ultimo numero della rivista Gli Asini, con articoli (tra gli altri) di: Giacomo Tesio, "A scuola di Google" Angelo Raffaele Meo, "Scuola e università: perché preferire il software libero" Davide Lamanna, "I pifferai magici del Cloud Computing e la pubblica amministrazione italiana" https://gliasinirivista.org/rivista/maggio-99-2022/ Bravi! jc

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