scholarly journals Framing Human-Automation Regulation: A New Modus Operandi from Cognitive Engineering

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Canellas ◽  
Rachel Haga

CITE AS: Canellas, Marc and Haga, Rachel and Miller, Matthew and Bhattacharyya, Raunak and Minotra, Dev and Razin, Yosef, Framing Human-Automation Regulation: A New Modus Operandi from Cognitive Engineering (March 23, 2017). We Robot 2017 at Yale School of Law.Human-automated systems are becoming ubiquitous in our society, from the one-on-one interactions of a driver and their automated vehicle to large-scale interactions of managing a world-wide network of commercial aircraft. Realizing the importance of effectively governing these human-automated systems, there been a recent renaissance of legal-ethical analysis of robotics and artificial-intelligence-based systems. As cognitive engineers, we authored this paper to embrace our responsibility to support effective governance of these human-automated systems. We believe that there are unique synergies between the cognitive engineers who shape human-automated systems by designing the technology, training, and operations, and the lawyers who design the rules, laws, and governance structures of these systems. To show how cognitive engineering can provide a foundation for effective governance, we define and address five essential questions regarding human-automated systems: 1) Complexity: What makes human-automation systems complex? 2) Definitions: How should we define and classify different types of human-autonomous systems? 3) Transparency: How do we determine and achieve the right levels of transparency for operators and regulators? 4) Accountability: How should we determine responsibility for the actions of human-automation systems? 5) Safety: How do human-automated systems fail? Our answers, drawn from the diverse domains related to cognitive engineering, show that care should be taken when making assumptions about human-automated systems, that cognitive engineering can provide a strong foundation for legal-ethical regulations of human-automated systems, and that there is still much work to be done by lawyers, ethicists, and technologists together.

1930 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis G. Wilson

Political science has dealt too long, on the one hand, with the ideal, and, on the other hand, with the abnormal and perverted features of political society, rather than with the normal and the eventual. Our theory of ideal democracy is perhaps more suited to the Greek and Roman city-state, with participation as the test of the good citizen. Representation has been heralded as the device which makes the ancient ideal possible on a large scale. But in practice it has been found that the enormous expansion of the public, i.e., the body of persons who have the right of participation, has made the problem far more complex than was at first thought possible. Greek ideals of education and coercion of the citizen body toward general improvement have been carried out with greater success, and our statute books reflect a Hobbesian attitude toward human nature which is true only in part. The political philosophy of democracy must be built on the facts of political life.Shall we break with the Greek and Roman ideal of the participation of the citizen group in the affairs of the state? It is true that the present attitude is a revised form of the democratic ideal of antiquity, but with a different interpretation of the meaning of citizenship. All democratic governments must finally rest on some theory of the suffrage; any study of the fact of non-voting must be based on a theory of the suffrage likewise. With the expansion of the theory of citizenship to include all subjects, a corresponding theory of limited participation was developed—no doubt a product of the Middle Ages. The totality of citizens was distrusted, and some test of participation had to be devised. Such was the origin of religious tests for political participation; such was the origin of the distinction between the right to vote and the fact of citizenship.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 339-374
Author(s):  
Aleksy Goettel

The main goal of this study is to assess whether, and if so, how the tax policy is implemented in Poland in relation to informal partnerships. The justification for conducting research in this area is the growing number of such relationships and the demands formulated by the public on the principles of taxation of cohabitants. The study analyzes not only taxes on natural persons, but also the provisions governing the principles of tax liability. The research shows that while pro-family tax policy is implemented on a fairly large scale in Poland, it does not apply to cohabitants. In principle, cohabitants do not have the right to any preferential taxation rules, above all tax reliefs and exemptions. Moreover, the analysis of the research material clearly indicates that staying in cohabitation can even aggravate the situation of a cohabitant under tax law (which can be seen perfectly well on the example of a cohabitant's liability for his partner's taxes). On the basis of a critical analysis of the Polish tax law provisions, the general thesis has been formulated that the situation of cohabitants is affected by deep asymmetry, because on the one hand the legislator uses cohabitation to improve the allocation of public revenues, but on the other hand it does not include cohabitants with pro-family tax policy (although cohabitation is very similar to marriage). The study includes certain demands on the legislator, thanks to which it is possible to cover cohabitants by pro-family tax policy.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (35) ◽  
pp. eaat1186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emmanuel Senft ◽  
Séverin Lemaignan ◽  
Paul E. Baxter ◽  
Madeleine Bartlett ◽  
Tony Belpaeme

Striking the right balance between robot autonomy and human control is a core challenge in social robotics, in both technical and ethical terms. On the one hand, extended robot autonomy offers the potential for increased human productivity and for the off-loading of physical and cognitive tasks. On the other hand, making the most of human technical and social expertise, as well as maintaining accountability, is highly desirable. This is particularly relevant in domains such as medical therapy and education, where social robots hold substantial promise, but where there is a high cost to poorly performing autonomous systems, compounded by ethical concerns. We present a field study in which we evaluate SPARC (supervised progressively autonomous robot competencies), an innovative approach addressing this challenge whereby a robot progressively learns appropriate autonomous behavior from in situ human demonstrations and guidance. Using online machine learning techniques, we demonstrate that the robot could effectively acquire legible and congruent social policies in a high-dimensional child-tutoring situation needing only a limited number of demonstrations while preserving human supervision whenever desirable. By exploiting human expertise, our technique enables rapid learning of autonomous social and domain-specific policies in complex and nondeterministic environments. Last, we underline the generic properties of SPARC and discuss how this paradigm is relevant to a broad range of difficult human-robot interaction scenarios.


Pedagogiek ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Schinkel

Abstract Toleration is a person’s response, on the one hand, to something she disapproves of, and on the other hand, to her inclination to put a stop to that which she disapproves of. When people think about toleration from a pedagogical perspective, as a virtue to be cultivated, attention naturally focuses on the latter: how do we teach someone to control herself, to take the other’s perspective, et cetera; and how do we make sure someone develops ‘tolerant’ views? Discussions about this virtually always concern the same topics, however; critical reflection on the objects of (in)tolerance are lacking. When we turn our gaze outwards, we see that intolerable practices take place on a large scale (e.g. ecologically destructive practices) that we all ‘tolerate’ – because we don’t care enough. We ought to teach children to care about the right things to the right degree; and that means we need to teach them not to tolerate certain practices.


ILR Review ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 185-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pablo Ibarrarán ◽  
Jochen Kluve ◽  
Laura Ripani ◽  
David Rosas Shady

Identifying the right human capital investments for disadvantaged youths is a key policy concern worldwide, yet almost no rigorous evidence on the long-run effects of these investments exists outside the United States. The authors present a large-scale randomized controlled trial of a youth training program, estimating effects six years after random assignment from a representative sample of more than 3,200 youths. The intervention is prototypical of training programs worldwide and is implemented at scale in the Dominican Republic. Empirical findings indicate, on the one hand, significant effects on formal employment, particularly for men, and on earnings for both men and women in Santo Domingo. On the other hand, no significant effects on overall average employment are evident.


2018 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 259-289
Author(s):  
Tânia Aparecida Kuhnen ◽  
Daniela Rosendo

The main subject of this paper is the concept of adequate food defined by the Brazilian Law No 11.346/06, whose implications are discussed through a gender – especially ecofeminist – lens. The Law defines the right to food that is also considered a fundamental right in the Brazilian Constitution. At the same time, the Brazilian economy is centered on crops production in a large-scale farming system for exportation. Based on that, the following question is addressed: is the concept of adequate food compatible with the economic privilege attributed to the massive agricultural system and to factory farms? The aim is to show that they are incompatible and the alternative is a defense of organic family farming and a plant-based diet, as it is presented in the  “Dietary Guidelines for the Brazilian Population” (2014). Another problem that arises from this issue is that agriculture in this large-scale dimension reflects structures of power and domination (Karen J. Warren) and animals used for corpse eating disappears, becoming absent referents (Carol J. Adams). It reflects the structure of a patriarchal society, where men have power over women, animals, and plants. The hypothesis is that in family farming women can participate more in the decision-making process, reflecting equality and justice in the private sphere. For that, the Special Reports on adequate food will be considered, mainly the one related to the mission of the Special Rapporteur to Brazil, whose analysis brings information on the gender category. This analysis draws attention to the situation of women in their struggles to fulfill the right to adequate food.


2007 ◽  
pp. 4-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Polterovich ◽  
V. Popov ◽  
A. Tonis

This paper compares various mechanisms of resource curse leading to a potentially inefficient use of resources; it is demonstrated that each of these mechanisms is associated with market imperfections and can be "corrected" with appropriate government policies. Empirical evidence seems to suggest that resource abundant countries have on average lower budget deficits and inflation, and higher foreign exchange reserves. Besides, lower domestic fuel prices that are typical for resource rich countries have a positive effect on long-term growth even though they are associated with losses resulting from higher energy consumption. On top of that resource abundance allows to reduce income inequalities. So, on the one hand, resource wealth turns out to be conducive to growth, especially in countries with strong institutions. However, on the other hand, resource abundance leads to corruption of institutions and to overvalued real exchange rates. On balance, there is no solid evidence that resource abundant countries grow more slowly than the others, but there is evidence that they grow more slowly than could have grown with the right policies and institutions.


2018 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
Andrew Jackson

One scenario put forward by researchers, political commentators and journalists for the collapse of North Korea has been a People’s Power (or popular) rebellion. This paper analyses why no popular rebellion has occurred in the DPRK under Kim Jong Un. It challenges the assumption that popular rebellion would happen because of widespread anger caused by a greater awareness of superior economic conditions outside the DPRK. Using Jack Goldstone’s theoretical expla-nations for the outbreak of popular rebellion, and comparisons with the 1989 Romanian and 2010–11 Tunisian transitions, this paper argues that marketi-zation has led to a loosening of state ideological control and to an influx of infor-mation about conditions in the outside world. However, unlike the Tunisian transitions—in which a new information context shaped by social media, the Al-Jazeera network and an experience of protest helped create a sense of pan-Arab solidarity amongst Tunisians resisting their government—there has been no similar ideology unifying North Koreans against their regime. There is evidence of discontent in market unrest in the DPRK, although protests between 2011 and the present have mostly been in defense of the right of people to support themselves through private trade. North Koreans believe this right has been guaranteed, or at least tacitly condoned, by the Kim Jong Un government. There has not been any large-scale explosion of popular anger because the state has not attempted to crush market activities outright under Kim Jong Un. There are other reasons why no popular rebellion has occurred in the North. Unlike Tunisia, the DPRK lacks a dissident political elite capable of leading an opposition movement, and unlike Romania, the DPRK authorities have shown some flexibility in their anti-dissent strategies, taking a more tolerant approach to protests against economic issues. Reduced levels of violence during periods of unrest and an effective system of information control may have helped restrict the expansion of unrest beyond rural areas.


Author(s):  
Marisa Abrajano ◽  
Zoltan L. Hajnal

This book provides an authoritative assessment of how immigration is reshaping American politics. Using an array of data and analysis, it shows that fears about immigration fundamentally influence white Americans' core political identities, policy preferences, and electoral choices, and that these concerns are at the heart of a large-scale defection of whites from the Democratic to the Republican Party. The book demonstrates that this political backlash has disquieting implications for the future of race relations in America. White Americans' concerns about Latinos and immigration have led to support for policies that are less generous and more punitive and that conflict with the preferences of much of the immigrant population. America's growing racial and ethnic diversity is leading to a greater racial divide in politics. As whites move to the right of the political spectrum, racial and ethnic minorities generally support the left. Racial divisions in partisanship and voting, as the book indicates, now outweigh divisions by class, age, gender, and other demographic measures. The book raises critical questions and concerns about how political beliefs and future elections will change the fate of America's immigrants and minorities, and their relationship with the rest of the nation.


Author(s):  
Olga V. Khavanova ◽  

The second half of the eighteenth century in the lands under the sceptre of the House of Austria was a period of development of a language policy addressing the ethno-linguistic diversity of the monarchy’s subjects. On the one hand, the sphere of use of the German language was becoming wider, embracing more and more segments of administration, education, and culture. On the other hand, the authorities were perfectly aware of the fact that communication in the languages and vernaculars of the nationalities living in the Austrian Monarchy was one of the principal instruments of spreading decrees and announcements from the central and local authorities to the less-educated strata of the population. Consequently, a large-scale reform of primary education was launched, aimed at making the whole population literate, regardless of social status, nationality (mother tongue), or confession. In parallel with the centrally coordinated state policy of education and language-use, subjects-both language experts and amateur polyglots-joined the process of writing grammar books, which were intended to ease communication between the different nationalities of the Habsburg lands. This article considers some examples of such editions with primary attention given to the correlation between private initiative and governmental policies, mechanisms of verifying the textbooks to be published, their content, and their potential readers. This paper demonstrates that for grammar-book authors, it was very important to be integrated into the patronage networks at the court and in administrative bodies and stresses that the Vienna court controlled the process of selection and financing of grammar books to be published depending on their quality and ability to satisfy the aims and goals of state policy.


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