With the inauguration of President Joseph Biden in January and the attaining of a narrow majority by Democratic party in Congress, there’s been some excitement in the cannabis space, as well as many questions revolving around one central unknown: How will the Biden administration and the swing in Congress leadership…
While we’ve devoted ample time to discussing areas of potential concern regarding the application of algorithms—and algorithm bias in particular—it’s also a good time to remember algorithmic technology is poised to make our lives better, often in ways we’ll never know about. Foiling Faux Pharma Researchers at Penn State are…
Just before Thanksgiving, Dave Chappelle posted to his Instagram account an 18-minute stand-up set titled “Unforgiven.” As expected, Chappelle’s fans ate it up, and the original video has been viewed more than six million times in the two weeks since its posting. Chappelle opens the set sharing stories and lessons…
Many restaurants that do not like food delivery platforms delivering their food will have their concerns addressed by a new California law enacted on September 24, 2020. AB-2149, known as the Fair Food Delivery Act of 2020, prohibits food delivery platforms from arranging for the delivery of food delivery orders…
One of the biggest obstacles self-driving cars have to get around is the one between our ears. Even as these vehicles are hitting the streets in pilot projects, three out of four Americans aren’t comfortable with the idea of their widespread use. The industry advocacy group that conducted the poll,…
The sweeping use of facial recognition software across public and private sectors has raised alarm bells in communities of color, for good reason. The data that feed the software, the photographic technology in the software, the application of the software—all these factors work together against darker-skinned people. Datasets are “dirty…
As research continues to prove that AI is not an impartial arbiter of who’s who (or who’s what), various mechanisms are being devised to mitigate the collateral damage from facial recognition software. Legislation: Since 2019, several bills have been introduced in the House or Senate to address privacy issues and…
We’ve written frequently about the distributed ledger technology (DLT) and the blockchain—on the interesting variations of the technology, its ability to bolster other technologies and its potential applications on everything from team giveaways to trading platforms (be they for cryptocurrency or energy commodities). In “Blockchain-Based Tokenization of Commercial Real Estate,”…
We’ve previously touched on some of the issues caused by AI bias. We’ve described how facial recognition technology may result in discriminatory outcomes, and more recently, we’ve addressed a parade of “algorithmic horror shows” such as flash stock market crashes, failed photographic technology, and egregious law enforcement errors. As uses…
Say what you want about the digital ad you received today for the shoes you bought yesterday, but research shows that algorithms are a powerful tool in online retail and marketing. By some estimates, 80 percent of Netflix viewing hours and 33 percent of Amazon purchases are prompted by automated…