May 25, 2018

What everyone needs to know about interpretability in machine learning

For anyone who’s been paying attention, it should be apparent that statistical machine learning systems are being widely deployed for automated decision making in all kinds of areas these days, including criminal justice, medicine, education, employment, policing, and so on. Particularly with the recently enacted GDPR—the new European regulation about data and privacy—there is growing interest in having systems that are interpretable, that is, we can make some sense of why they are making the prediction that they are making. To borrow an example from Been Kim, if a computer tells you that you need surgery, you’re probably going to ask for some sort of explanation.

Tags:  machine-learning ,  interpretability

May 14, 2018

Privacy in Context

Although it was not the largest of its kind, or the most invasive, or even particularly surprising, the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal produced a surprisingly large amount of outrage and commentary. If nothing else, it was yet another reminder that we have gradually slipped into a regime where certain aspects of our privacy that could once be taken for granted are now long gone. Are people concerned? Is this something we should be worried about? What exactly are the harms that come from this sort of loss of privacy.

Tags:  privacy ,  books

Nov 27, 2017

Emergent Archives

It’s fascinating to think about how much we give to the internet, and sometimes, how much it gives back. In my mind, there is a fairly direct historical connection between self-archiving practices from a couple of decades ago (keeping a diary, making photo albums, writing letters, etc.), to all the more recent variations on this idea (status updates, tweets, photo feeds, etc.). The difference is arguably in how much of the background work is taken care of for us, and the fact that we now make so much of this information public or semi-public. While many have explored the implications of this for privacy, security, and surveillance, there is another aspect that gets less attention: the automatic creation of our own archives.

Tags:  archives ,  memory

Nov 25, 2017

Montage as Archive

I was recently reminded of Christian Marclay’s The Clock—a 24 hour film made up of thousands of short film clips, carefully edited together such that (when properly synchronized) the time depicted in each moment of film corresponds to the current time in the world. I’ve never seen it, and sadly only a few copies exist, but I think it’s a fascinating example of a kind of archival art.

When you hear the description, you might think of it as just a kind of a gimmick, one which would not reward actual viewing. However, based on the (bootlegged) clips that are available online and reports from various people who have seen it, it apparently achieves much more. To be clear, although many of the scenes involve a shot of some sort of time piece (thereby establishing the time in the source film), the composition is not so simple as just finding and assembling shots of clocks. Rather, we see a slice in time, sometimes with intercutting between films. As a result, common patterns quickly emerge: in the morning we get people waking up. In the evening, we see people eating dinner and attending parties, etc. This is interesting because what is shown in films bears some relation to what happens in the real world; even if it ends up being a distorted or idealized reflection, this certainly tells us something about how Hollywood depicts society, and by implication, something about society itself.

Tags:  archives ,  film ,  history

Jun 5, 2017

Reproducibility in Art and Science

Marking the beginning of a new partnership between Rhizome and the Google Cultural Institute, the Rhizome blog recently published a conversation between Dragan Espenschied, Rhizome’s preservation director, and Vint Cerf, Google’s Chief Internet Evangelist. In addition to bringing together two people with among the coolest job titles ever, it got me thinking about some similarities between art and science when it comes to the issue of reproduction.

The main thrust of the conversation is about the difficulty of preserving internet art. In particular, works such as The Web Stalker were often made in a particular context, intended to be performances of a sort, and which depended on the existence of a certain technical infrastructure, including a particular operating system, a particular input device, an internet connection, and accompanying protocols. Part of the conversation relates to the fact that it’s actually very difficult to maintain or recreate every single thing that is required in order for a modern viewer to have the exact same experience as when it was first created. Nevertheless, Dragan argues, there is still value in preserving part of the experience.

Tags:  reproducibility ,  art ,  science ,  digital-preservation ,  open-science

May 21, 2017

The Self-Archiving machine

What lies in store for this post? As I write this, it exists in a strange space — not yet public, yet already part of an archive, of a kind. Perhaps it cannot yet even be properly called a post, (since it has not yet been posted), and yet it is there for me to read and edit, part of my collection of unpublished stubs, stored on the Medium servers along with who knows what metadata.

Tags:  archives ,  writing ,  technology

Mar 31, 2017

Elbow Room

Daniel Dennett is one of the most fascinating philosophers currently living. Although he pursued a traditional (but nonetheless exceptional) course of education, over time he seems to have moved farther and farther away from traditional philosophical methods and styles, and more toward a form of engagement that is simultaneously rigorous, original, and accessible. Not only is he prolific, he is far better informed on scientific topics than any other philosopher I can think of, and seems to have quite intentionally pursued a course through the relevant fields of inquiry in order to develop a sophisticated understanding of what we are as human beings.

Tags:  free-will ,  Dennett ,  books