Sunday, September 09, 2018

Dangerous technology or “user error?”
Scooter use is rising in major cities. So are trips to the emergency room.
… In Santa Monica, Calif. — where one of the biggest electric-scooter companies is based — the city’s fire department has responded to 34 serious accidents involving the devices this summer. The director of an emergency department there said his team treated 18 patients who were seriously injured in electric-scooter accidents during the final two weeks of July. And in San Francisco, the doctor who runs the emergency room at a major hospital said he is seeing as many as 10 severe injuries a week.




“Algorithms is free speech?”
Press protections might safeguard Google’s algorithms, even from Trump
President Trump indicated last week that the White House is looking into regulating Google, Facebook, and Twitter because they are, he alleges, privileging voices that criticize him while suppressing his supporters’ ideas.
How, exactly, would this blanket suggestion to regulate these companies work? When we’re talking about regulating the information that comes up in Google searches or appears in people’s timelines on Facebook or Twitter, we’re really talking about governing algorithms and the decisions they make about which information should be provided and prioritized.
Regulating algorithms might seem like entirely new legal territory, since Google and its cousins are only two decades old. But a newspaper case from 1974 has quite a bit to say about whether the government can control, under the First Amendment, companies’ algorithms and how they produce and organize information.
In Miami Herald v. Tornillo, the Supreme Court struck down a Florida law that gave political candidates the “right of reply” to criticisms they faced in newspapers. The law required the newspaper to publish a response from the candidate, and to place it, free of charge, in a conspicuous place. The candidate’s lawyers contended that newspapers held near monopolistic roles when it came to reaching audiences and that compelling them to publish responses was the only way to ensure that candidates could have a comparable voice.
In the Herald case, the paper refused to comply with the law. Its editors argued the law violated the First Amendment because it allowed the government to compel a newspaper to publish certain information. The Supreme Court resoundingly agreed with the Herald. Justices explained that the government cannot force newspaper editors “to publish that which reason tells them should not be published.”




From that bastion of legal thought…
China's Supreme Court Recognizes Blockchain Evidence as Legally Binding
Blockchain can now be legally used to authenticate evidence in legal disputes in China, according to the country's Supreme People's Court.
The court released new rules on Friday – that take immediate effect – clarifying various issues relating to how internet courts in China should review legal disputes.
Part of the new regulation specifies that internet courts in the country shall recognize the legality of blockchain as a method for storing and authenticating digital evidence, provided that parties can prove the legitimacy of the technology being used in the process.
"Internet courts shall recognize digital data that are submitted as evidence if relevant parties collected and stored these data via blockchain with digital signatures, reliable timestamps and hash value verification or via a digital deposition platform, and can prove the authenticity of such technology used," the Supreme Court said in an announcement.




Hear this, Bernie Sanders?
Amazon’s Antitrust Antagonist Has a Breakthrough Idea
… At the end of the antitrust stacks is a table near the window. “This is my command post,” said Lina Khan.
It’s nothing, really. A few books are piled up haphazardly next to a bottle with water and another with tea. Ms. Khan was in Dallas quite a bit over the last year, refining an argument about monopoly power that takes aim at one of the most admired, secretive and feared companies of our era: Amazon.
The retailer overwhelmingly dominates online commerce, employs more than half a million people and powers much of the internet itself through its cloud computing division. On Tuesday, it briefly became the second company to be worth a trillion dollars.
… Amazon has more revenue than Facebook, Google and Twitter put together, but it has largely escaped sustained examination. That is beginning to change, and one significant reason is Ms. Khan.
In early 2017, when she was an unknown law student, Ms. Khan published “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox” in the Yale Law Journal. Her argument went against a consensus in antitrust circles that dates back to the 1970s — the moment when regulation was redefined to focus on consumer welfare, which is to say price. Since Amazon is renowned for its cut-rate deals, it would seem safe from federal intervention.
Ms. Khan disagreed. Over 93 heavily footnoted pages, she presented the case that the company should not get a pass on anticompetitive behavior just because it makes customers happy. Once-robust monopoly laws have been marginalized, Ms. Khan wrote, and consequently Amazon is amassing structural power that lets it exert increasing control over many parts of the economy.
Amazon has so much data on so many customers, it is so willing to forgo profits, it is so aggressive and has so many advantages from its shipping and warehouse infrastructure that it exerts an influence much broader than its market share. It resembles the all-powerful railroads of the Progressive Era, Ms. Khan wrote: “The thousands of retailers and independent businesses that must ride Amazon’s rails to reach market are increasingly dependent on their biggest competitor.”




Perspective.
The devilishly quiet age of AI
… The AI revolution will arrive almost imperceptibly, but still faster than prior big technological shifts because of intense global competition and the breadth of its reach, according to a new study by the McKinsey Global Institute.
But by the second half of the next decade, a few players will be conspicuously ahead of rivals, and by 2035, there will be clear winners and losers among countries, companies and individuals.
  • The dividing line will be defined by those who took the coming age seriously and prepared for it and those who were passive.
The report follows up on a May study by McKinsey that described an evolving pecking order of companies that were establishing "an insurmountable advantage" over peers by pushing ahead with AI. It singled out nine "superstar" companies, all in the U.S. and China, that were well ahead of everyone else.
The latest study expands by adding to the list winning countries and individuals. In all, McKinsey analyzed 41 countries, grouping them into four buckets by how well they appeared to be poised for the new age of AI.
… By the time the fruits of AI investment become clear — after 2025 — it will be extremely difficult to compete with the leading players, says Jacques Bughin and Jeongmin Seong, two co-authors of the report.
… AI adoption will add $13 trillion a year to global production, the report said, and an average of 1.2% to global GDP growth per year.
  • Among companies, those that embrace AI will see double their cash flow by 2030. Those that don't could lose 20% of their revenue by then.




Consciously or not, Scott Adams is targeting the White House.


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