This extraordinary book explains the engine that has catapulted the Internet from backwater to ubiquity-and reveals that it is sputtering precisely because of its runaway success. With the unwitting ...help of its users, the generative Internet is on a path.
Adversarial attacks on medical machine learning Finlayson, Samuel G; Bowers, John D; Ito, Joichi ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2019, Volume:
363, Issue:
6433
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Emerging vulnerabilities demand new conversations
With public and academic attention increasingly focused on the new role of machine learning in the health information economy, an unusual and ...no-longer-esoteric category of vulnerabilities in machine-learning systems could prove important. These vulnerabilities allow a small, carefully designed change in how inputs are presented to a system to completely alter its output, causing it to confidently arrive at manifestly wrong conclusions. These advanced techniques to subvert otherwise-reliable machine-learning systems—so-called adversarial attacks—have, to date, been of interest primarily to computer science researchers ( 1 ). However, the landscape of often-competing interests within health care, and billions of dollars at stake in systems' outputs, implies considerable problems. We outline motivations that various players in the health care system may have to use adversarial attacks and begin a discussion of what to do about them. Far from discouraging continued innovation with medical machine learning, we call for active engagement of medical, technical, legal, and ethical experts in pursuit of efficient, broadly available, and effective health care that machine learning will enable.
The science of fake news Lazer, David M J; Baum, Matthew A; Benkler, Yochai ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
03/2018, Volume:
359, Issue:
6380
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Addressing fake news requires a multidisciplinary effort
The rise of fake news highlights the erosion of long-standing institutional bulwarks against misinformation in the internet age. Concern over ...the problem is global. However, much remains unknown regarding the vulnerabilities of individuals, institutions, and society to manipulations by malicious actors. A new system of safeguards is needed. Below, we discuss extant social and computer science research regarding belief in fake news and the mechanisms by which it spreads. Fake news has a long history, but we focus on unanswered scientific questions raised by the proliferation of its most recent, politically oriented incarnation. Beyond selected references in the text, suggested further reading can be found in the supplementary materials.
The Generative Internet Zittrain, Jonathan L
Harvard law review,
05/2006, Volume:
119, Issue:
7
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
The generative capacity for unrelated and unaccredited audiences to build and distribute code and content through the Internet to its tens of millions of attached personal computers has ignited ...growth and innovation in information technology and has facilitated new creative endeavors. It has also given rise to regulatory and entrepreneurial backlashes. A further backlash among consumers is developing in response to security threats that exploit the openness of the Internet and of PCs to third-party contribution. A shift in consumer priorities from generativity to stability will compel undesirable responses from regulators and markets and, if unaddressed, could prove decisive in closing today's open computing environments. This Article explains why PC openness is as important as network openness, as well as why today's open network might give rise to unduly closed endpoints. It argues that the Internet is better conceptualized as a generative grid that includes both PCs and networks rather than as an open network indifferent to the configuration of its endpoints. Applying this framework, the Article explores ways - some of them bound to be unpopular among advocates of an open Internet represented by uncompromising end-to-end neutrality - in which the Internet can be made to satisfy genuine and pressing security concerns while retaining the most important generative aspects of today's networked technology.
Ubiquitous human computing Zittrain, Jonathan
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences,
10/2008, Volume:
366, Issue:
1881
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Ubiquitous computing means network connectivity everywhere, linking devices and systems as small as a drawing pin and as large as a worldwide product distribution chain. What could happen when people ...are so readily networked? This paper explores issues arising from two possible emerging models of ubiquitous human computing: fungible networked brainpower and collective personal vital sign monitoring.
The governance of online platforms has unfolded across three eras – the era of Rights (which stretched from the early 1990s to about 2010), the era of Public Health (from 2010 through the present), ...and the era of Process (of which we are now seeing the first stirrings).
Reflections on Internet Culture Zittrain, Jonathan L
Journal of visual culture,
12/2014, Volume:
13, Issue:
3
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
In these edited remarks originally given at ROFLCon in May 2012, Jonathan Zittrain muses on the nature of memes and their relationships to their creators as well as to broader culture and to ...politics. The distributed environment of the internet allows memes to morph and become distanced from their original intentions. As meme culture becomes more and more assimilated into popular culture, subcultures like those of Reddit or 4chan have begun to re-conceptualize their own role from just meme propagators to cultural producers. Memes can gain commercial appeal, much to the chagrin of their creators. More strangely, memes can gain political traction and affiliation, like American conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly’s ‘You can‘t explain that’ or Anonymous’ ‘Low Orbit Ion Cannon’. Can meme culture survive becoming not just the property of geeks and nerds, but part of the commercial and political world?
Fixing the internet Zittrain, Jonathan
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
11/2018, Volume:
362, Issue:
6417
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Data breaches at Facebook and Google—and along with Amazon, those firms' online dominance—crest a growing wave of anxiety around the internet's evolving structure and its impact on humanity. Three ...keys to the decades-long global expansion of the internet and the World Wide Web are breaking down.
PDF
