PurposeThis conceptual paper draws together an interdisciplinary approach to robo-advisors (RAs) as an example of an early and successful example of automated, programmed professional ...services.Design/methodology/approachLittle is known about the forces driving this change in the delivery of professional service. This work explores the drivers of RAs, the degree of disruption incurred by the introduction of RAs, and how, as RAs advance, trust in algorithmic authority aids in legitimating RAs as smart information.FindingsFrom the firms' perspective, the drivers include rebranding occasioned by the financial crisis (2008), the widening of the client base and the “on-trend” nature of algorithmic authority guided by artificial intelligence (AI) embedded in RAs. This examination of the drivers of RAs indicates that professional service automation is aligned with information society trends and is likely to expand.Practical implicationsExamining RAs as an indicator of the future introduction of programmed professional services suggests that success increases when the algorithmic authority in the programmed serves are minimally disruptive, trustworthy and expand the client base while keeping the knowledge domain of the profession under control of the industry.Originality/valueTreating RAs as an early instance of successfully embedding knowledge in AI and algorithmically based platforms adds to the early stages of theory and practice in the monetization and automation of professional knowledge-based services.
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the new normal within a continuum of three types of disruption, each of varying duration. References to the new normal draw attention to the periodic ...and rising importance of different levels, types, and consequences of game-changing disruption for those in governance roles.
Design/methodology/approach
In this conceptual research, given the discussion of a return to normalcy near the expected end of the COVID-19 pandemic, the authors organize the literature on disruption in governance into a disruption continuum – emergency, crisis and super crisis – to demonstrate the differences in each type of disruption to establish a distinct view of the new normal.
Findings
Within the three types of disruption, the first two suit the rational authority model in which disruption is turned over to those in governance roles. However, the rational authority model comes under attack in the super crisis and is increasingly associated with the post-truth era.
Social implications
In Type 3 disruptions or super crises, the failure of those in control to set the parameters of the new normal raises concerns that the center no longer holds, and as a result, the assumption of an attentive public splinter into multiple contending publics, each with its version of data, facts and images.
Originality/value
The new normal is typically treated after the result of a black swan or rare and surprising long-lived disruption. In this work, the formulation of the recurrence, ubiquity and controversy engendered by super crises suggests that it is one of the features attenuating and giving rise to fractious incivility in the post-truth era.
Studies of perception usually emphasize processes that are largely universal across observers and—except for short-term fluctuations—stationary over time. Here we test the universality and ...stationarity assumptions with two families of ambiguous visual stimuli. Each stimulus can be perceived in two different ways, parameterized by two opposite directions from a continuous circular variable. A large-sample study showed that almost all observers have preferred directions or biases, with directions lying within 90 degrees of the bias direction nearly always perceived and opposite directions almost never perceived. The biases differ dramatically from one observer to the next, and although nearly every bias direction occurs in the population, the population distributions of the biases are nonuniform, featuring asymmetric peaks in the cardinal directions. The biases for the two families of stimuli are independent and have distinct population distributions. Following external perturbations and spontaneous fluctuations, the biases decay over tens of seconds toward their initial values. Persistent changes in the biases are found on time scales of several minutes to 1 hour. On scales of days to months, the biases undergo a variety of dynamical processes such as drifts, jumps, and oscillations. The global statistics of a majority of these long-term time series are well modeled as random walk processes. The measurable fluctuations of these hitherto unknown degrees of freedom show that the assumptions of universality and stationarity in perception may be unwarranted and that models of perception must include both directly observable variables as well as covert, persistent states.
Purpose
Strategic pivoting, the decision to invest in shifting the attention of an organization, is no longer limited to early-stage organizations and entrepreneurs but has, without a discussion of ...complications, been applied to large corporations and public agencies.
Design/methodology/approach
This conceptual paper defines strategic pivoting, highlights the centrality of pivoting in new and entrepreneurial organizations and critically examines its application as a strategy fostering organizational agility in corporations.
Findings
Pivoting in the corporate context complicates the ease of executing an attention shift by introducing a path-dependent momentum that requires modification of the time horizon, stakeholder strategy and the frequency of pivoting.
Practical implications
This comparative examination of pivoting highlights the importance of organizational size, complexity, degree of specialization and path-dependent history when deciding to pivot.
Originality/value
The present ease with which the strategic pivot is treated as an adaptive strategy to corporate leaders seeking greater flexibility overstates the ease of execution.
An outstanding challenge for consciousness research is to characterize the neural signature of conscious access independently of any decisional processes. Here we present a model-based approach that ...uses inter-trial variability to identify the brain dynamics associated with stimulus processing. We demonstrate that, even in the absence of any task or behavior, the electroencephalographic response to auditory stimuli shows bifurcation dynamics around 250-300 milliseconds post-stimulus. Namely, the same stimulus gives rise to late sustained activity on some trials, and not on others. This late neural activity is predictive of task-related reports, and also of reports of conscious contents that are randomly sampled during task-free listening. Source localization further suggests that task-free conscious access recruits the same neural networks as those associated with explicit report, except for frontal executive components. Studying brain dynamics through variability could thus play a key role for identifying the core signatures of conscious access, independent of report.
PurposeThis conceptual paper explores the implications for the sociology of the professions of robo-advice (RA) provided by robo-advisors (RAs) as an early example of successfully programmed ...algorithmic knowledge managed by artificial intelligence (AI).Design/methodology/approach The authors examine the drivers of RAs, their success, characteristics, and establish RA as an early precursor of commercialized, programmed professional advice with implications for developments in the sociology of the professions.FindingsWithin the lens of the sociology of the professions, the success of RAs suggests that the diffusion of this innovation depends on three factors: the programmed flows of automated professional knowledge are minimally disruptive, they are less costly, and attract attention because of the “on-trend” nature of algorithmic authority guided by AI. The on-trend nature of algorithmic governance and its increasing public acceptance points toward an algorithmic paradox. The contradictions arise in the gap between RA marketed to the public and as a set of professional practices.Practical implicationsThe incursion of RA-like disembodied advice into other professions is predicted given the emergence of tech-savvy clients, the tie between RA and updatable flows of big data, and an increasing shift to the “maker” or “do-it-yourself” movements.Originality/valueUsing the success of RAs in the financial industry, the authors predict that an AI-managed platform, despite the algorithmic paradox, is an avenue for growth with implications for researchers in the sociology of the professions.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate COVID-19 as a super crisis in the design and management of places.Design/methodology/approachThis theory-driven work outlines why and how, by ...treating COVID-19 as a super crisis, the immunological view rises in priority and swiftly ushers in short- and long-term implications for space design and place management.FindingsFirst, this paper looks at the short-term impact of COVID-19 upon space and place management in addressing how porous bubbling, stippling and flexible curtaining respond to immediate retrofitting needs during the pandemic. Using the concept of COVID-19-induced collective trauma, this paper draws attention to health-care facilities, schools, workplaces, commercial buildings and public outdoor spaces. These sites require short-term improvisation in place and space design and will, where the collective trauma of COVID-19 leaves strong traces, require long-term redesign and rethinking.Social implicationsAs a super crisis, COVID-19 generates contradictions in the existing trend in space and place studies from the notion of space and place as a container to one focusing on “flow.” A focus on flow highlights a focus on space and place as adaptable to changes in flow, especially as augmented and mediated by technology.Originality/valueThis treatment of COVID-19 as a super crisis is intended to stimulate the design and management of spaces and places in the post-COVID-19 period.
Direct coupling of haptic signals between hands Dupin, Lucile; Hayward, Vincent; Wexler, Mark
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS,
01/2015, Letnik:
112, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Although motor actions can profoundly affect the perceptual interpretation of sensory inputs, it is not known whether the combination of sensory and movement signals occurs only for sensory surfaces ...undergoing movement or whether it is a more general phenomenon. In the haptic modality, the independent movement of multiple sensory surfaces poses a challenge to the nervous system when combining the tactile and kinesthetic signals into a coherent percept. When exploring a stationary object, the tactile and kinesthetic signals come from the same hand. Here we probe the internal structure of haptic combination by directing the two signal streams to separate hands: one hand moves but receives no tactile stimulation, while the other hand feels the consequences of the first hand’s movement but remains still. We find that both discrete and continuous tactile and kinesthetic signals are combined as if they came from the same hand. This combination proceeds by direct coupling or transfer of the kinesthetic signal from the moving to the feeling hand, rather than assuming the displacement of a mediating object. The combination of signals is due to perception rather than inference, because a small temporal offset between the signals significantly degrades performance. These results suggest that the brain simplifies the complex coordinate transformation task of remapping sensory inputs to take into account the movements of multiple body parts in haptic perception, and they show that the effects of action are not limited to moving sensors.
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the manner in which advocates of crowdsourcing reconfigure the classical sociological treatment of the crowd.Design methodology approach - The ...approach taken conceives of the semantics of crowd theorizing in three phases, each of which makes sense of the power dynamics between the elite and the crowd. In phases one and two, the crowd is conceptualized as a problem generator; in phase three, the crowd is depicted as a problem solver and innovator.Findings - This paper provides a critical look at phase three crowd theorizing. It explores how, by ignoring the disruptive power dynamic, crowdsourcing generates a credible image of the crowd as an innovator and problem solver. The work concludes with a discussion of the implications of phase three crowd theorizing for researchers in sociology.Practical implications - Advocates of the wisdom of crowds, if interested in the sociological implications of their position, must attend to both the disruptive and costly implications of third phase crowd theorizing.Originality value - This paper maps the crowdsourcing process and places it in context. It argues that the distance between the classical social scientific treatment of the crowd is not nearly as great as crowdsourcing advocates would have one believe. Nevertheless, phase three crowd theorizing opens up sociologically relevant questions regarding the future portrayal of collective intelligence as a form of virtual property.
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