No One Has Been Paying Attention For A While Now: What Recent Experiences With Remote Juries Tell Us About Our Distracted World

In Court, Everett Collection

Some California courts are holding jury trials during the coronavirus pandemic. Logistics have been a difficult challenge. But the biggest problem — one far more consequential than any technical issue and more pervasive than what happens in legal proceedings — is many people’s inability to pay attention anymore.

In one case, a juror left his computer to attend to food on the stove. Another juror could be seen lying in bed. Jurors switched focus away from court proceedings to other screens, kids, pets, and whatever else was happening at home.

In other words, jurors did what everyone does during video meetings. Juror distraction is merely a special case of a general problem.

Here’s what we can do about it.

(Link to full essay, originally published by The Daily Journal, September 11, 2020)

An 18th Century Summer Reading List

The books I’ve read recently were all written in the last ten years. Most were published in the last two years. I’m not alone in my choices. By focusing in this way, are we losing a broader context, missing foundation for deeper thoughts and understanding, especially when the ground on which we stand seems to be shifting so tumultuously?

Photo: William Silver, The Wren Building at the College of William and Mary.

True, historical books remain popular (e.g. Grant, Sapiens, Hamilton of course). But these works still filter history through a contemporary eye.

Now seems like a critical time to step back, view the big picture, and revisit ancient wisdom. If one undertook such task, what would the reading list look like?

A first edition of Herodotus' history of the Persian Wars sold by Christie’s. Edited by Aldus Manutius (c. 1452-1515). Venice: Aldus Manutius, September 1502.

The earliest known drawing of the Wren Building was made by Franz Ludwig Michel, a Swiss traveler, in 1702. It is a view of the east elevation. (Courtesy College of William & Mary)

My first thought — thinking about how Lincoln and Hamilton initially struggled to find books — was that the list would be short. The number of published books in circulation during the 18th Century was small by today’s standards.

I returned to Thomas Jefferson’s famous letter to his nephew Peter Carr. Carr was essentially a high school student at this point. Jefferson was “much mortified” to hear how little Carr had progressed in his studies. So Jefferson gives him a reading list and promises to send him various volumes.

I compiled Jefferson’s list below.

I left off the scientific and mathematic books — Jefferson recommends that Carr wait to study these subjects until university. And given the progress we’ve made in these domains, this is one area where newer books are better, unless of course one wanted to study the texts for historical purposes.

However unostentatiously Jefferson seems to suggest this as starting point for a young man’s education, these books would — today — surely comprise a rigorous undergraduate curriculum in the humanities.

And — it’s hard to conceive of doing this now — but remember that students then read the Greek and Roman texts in their original ancient languages, rather than in translation. The better mathematic and scientific texts were in French. Jefferson strongly promoted learning Spanish. So, the prerequisites themselves were daunting.

Photo: Page one of "Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 10 August 1787". Image from the Library of Congress, The Thomas Jefferson Papers. By this point, Carr was studying law under George Wythe at William & Mary.

As intimidating as this list seems, it’s also narrow in scope. There are no works from any non-Western cultures, where ideas also flourished and produced similarly important texts. (Add those to the list — extra credit!)

Summer isn’t over yet. So, before you pick up that latest James Patterson novel, behold Thomas Jefferson’s Reading List:

Greek History

• Goldsmith's history of Greece
• Herodotus
• Thucydides
• Xenophontis Hellenica
• Xenophontis Anabasis
• Arrian
• Quintus Curtius
• Diodorus Siculus
• Justin

Roman History

• Livy
• Sullust
• Caesar
• Cicero's epistles
• Suetonius
• Tacitus
• Gibbon

Greek and Latin poetry

• Virgil
• Terence
• Horace
• Anacreon
• Theocritus
• Homer
• Euripides
• Sophocles

“Modern” literature

• Milton's Paradise Lost
• Shakespeare
• Ossian
• Pope's work
• Swift's works

Morality

• Epictetus
• Xenophontis Memorabilia
• Plato's Socratic dialogues
• Cicero's philosophies
• Antoninus
• Seneca

Minding The Gap: Why Great Storytellers Read

Beginning artists — all who create for a living — must first recognize that their starting work is not as good as the work they admire, the mature product made by others. To heighten this perception — and to replenish the drive to improve throughout a career — writers must keep writing. And they must read.

Photo: Ivan Ives. Reader, Reading Room, Mitchell Building, State Library of New South Wales, 29.10.1943, Pix Magazine, part of the ACP Magazines Ltd. photographic archive, ON 388 / Box 006 / Item 091

Recounting his journey as a storyteller, Ira Glass says:

All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. The first couple of years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. Okay? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has the ambition to be good, but it’s not that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you … You can tell that it’s still sort of crappy. A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people, at that point, they quit.

In her book on the business of writing, Jane Friedman advises:

If you can’t perceive the gap — or if you haven’t gone through the “phase” — you probably aren’t reading enough. Writers can develop good taste and understand what quality work is by reading writers they admire and want to emulate.

In his memoir, Stephen King describes a typical day — intense writing and editing in the morning, followed by reading in the afternoon and evenings, when he hones his sense for language and character. Reading fuels his writing. He admonishes the young writer: “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or tools) to write.”

For creators, the gap is persistent. The skill of the masters is elusive. The old work continues to arouse and enlighten — to enrich the new work. It cannot be attained or surpassed.

As we improve in our craft, our taste improves too. The finishing tape keeps moving, and we can never break through it. Someday, we might finally think our work is no longer “sort of crappy.” But we’ll never be satisfied either. That’s what keeps us learning.

Independence Day 2020 — Why This Year Is Different

I’m reflecting on this Fourth of July, because this one seems so different than any other I can remember.

Friends and family will not gather.

Parades are cancelled.

This three-day weekend is a cruel irony for the millions rendered unemployed by the coronavirus. Nor will it be enjoyed even by many with jobs, who must work from home with young children tugging at their attention — or along the front lines of our supply chain — worrying about their health and knowing their economic fate may not be so secure.

Factionalism is strong. Social cohesion is weak. We perceive domestic enemies everywhere.

The virus overlays it all. It has revealed our vulnerabilities on many levels — physically, societally, even spiritually.

Then there’s the Black Lives Matters movement and our era’s renewed call for social justice. People are reassessing our history, learning that the dominant narrative is not shared by all. The founders declared American “independence,” though freedom for so many would remain elusive for so long, and in some ways it still does.

We have reconsidered our monuments. Some statutes are simply relics of the worst days of racism. They should go. Yet other sculptures — such as the Freedman’s Memorial — reflect a more nuanced story and perhaps ought to be preserved.

This day is a complicated monument of sorts too. Independence Day commemorates our principled break from tyranny, the courage and genius of our founders, and basic national pride.

But we must also remember how we’ve fallen short of our ideals. So, we should dedicate some effort this day — especially this year — toward revitalizing our struggle toward a more perfect union.

Have a good Fourth of July.

Facial Recognition Software and Social Media

The taboo on facial recognition technology is eroding. And a new app called Clearview is increasingly being used by law enforcement and garnering attention. The New York Times reports:

Police departments have had access to facial recognition tools for almost 20 years, but they have historically been limited to searching government-provided images, such as mug shots and driver’s license photos. In recent years, facial recognition algorithms have improved in accuracy, and companies like Amazon offer products that can create a facial recognition program for any database of images.

Mr. Ton-That wanted to go way beyond that. He began in 2016 by recruiting a couple of engineers. One helped design a program that can automatically collect images of people’s faces from across the internet, such as employment sites, news sites, educational sites, and social networks including Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and even Venmo. Representatives of those companies said their policies prohibit such scraping, and Twitter said it explicitly banned use of its data for facial recognition.

Some commentators view this as having crossed an ethical line and we should now ban facial recognition technology altogether.

Of course, the software would never work without the de facto cooperation of social media companies and all of us who freely share our images with them. This particular software apparently works so well because it has a much larger database of images as compared to the FBI and other law enforcement agencies.

There’s an irony of law enforcement solving crimes using what is, arguably, stolen property of those who intended to shared an image with their friends.

Update: Facebook’s own facial recognition technology remains in the courts. Via The Hill:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a high-profile court battle over whether users can sue Facebook for using facial recognition technology on their photos without proper consent.

The high court rejected Facebook's bid to review the case, meaning the social media giant will likely have to face the multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit over whether it violated an Illinois privacy law.

The case, Facebook vs. Patel, hinges on a question over whether Facebook violated Illinois law when it implemented a photo-tagging feature that recognized users' faces and suggested their names without obtaining adequate consent. Facebook argued to the Supreme Court that the class-action case should not be allowed to proceed because the group of users have not proven that the alleged privacy violation resulted in "real-world harm."

Further Update: The New York Times reports that Facebook to agreed to pay $550 million to settle the facial recognition suit.

AI Falsely Accused Thousands Of Fraud?

Civil rights attorney Jennifer L. Lord represents clients in wrongful termination cases. In 2013, she noticed a common story emerging:

“We were experiencing this rush of people calling us and saying they were told they committed fraud,” Lord said. “We spoke to some of our colleagues who also practice civil rights and employment law and everyone was experiencing this.”

Lord and her team then discovered the Michigan Unemployment Insurance Agency in 2013 purchased the algorithmic decision-making computer called MIDAS, and when the agency did so, it also laid off its fraud detection unit.

“The computer was left to operate by itself,” Lord said. “The Michigan auditor general issued two different reports a year later and found the computer was wrong 93 percent of the time.”

The government accused about 40,000 people of fraud and seized close to $100 million by garnishing their wages or seizing tax refunds. This led Lord and her team to file the class action lawsuit Bauserman v. Unemployment Insurance Agency (subscription required), and the Michigan Supreme Court recently ruled the case may proceed.

According to Lord, it took some digging just to learn that the decision was performed by an algorithm. Recognizing algorithmic — as opposed to human — decisionmaking, has become an increasingly important skill, one of Yuval Noah Hariri’s 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

This also raises the question of whether machine can and should provide due process. In this case, fraud requires proving intent, involving the subtle and inferential determination of what people were thinking under the circumstances. Are algorithms currently up to the task? How soon before they are?

It also raises the question of how algorithms should be used to make law enforcement decisions more generally. With facial recognition and surveillance data increasingly available, using algorithms to make decisions becomes more attractive. Just ask Chinese authorities.

Finally, this reminds me of the situation in Baltimore, where a cash-strapped municipality finds itself overwhelmed with technological advancement. For Baltimore, it was the inability to fight back against malware. Here, the state may have been tempted by what seemed like a good technological substitute for an expensive government function.

For now at least, significant government decisions still need to be made by humans. As algorithms are incorporated into government decisions, the process must be disclosed and made as transparent as possible. And critically, there must be a way to appeal the decision to a human.

Robot Floor Cleaners At Walmart

Walmart attributes part of its second-quarter results to investments in robot floor cleaners:

“Smart assistants have huge potential to make busy stores run more smoothly, so Walmart has been pioneering new technologies to minimize the time an associate spends on the more mundane and repetitive tasks like cleaning floors or checking inventory on a shelf,” said Elizabeth Walker, from Walmart corporate affairs.

Viewed most positively, this is perhaps another example of Multiplicity, with the division of labor between humans and machines based on what they do best.

New Efforts At Autonomous Vehicle Legislation

In 2017, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the SELF DRIVE Act governing autonomous vehicles, but it stalled in the Senate. Last year, lawmakers failed to pass a bill before the December recess.

Today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee announced work on a “bipartisan and bicameral basis to develop a self-driving car bill.” They request input from automakers, safety groups, and other stakeholders before August 23. David Shepardson, reporting for Reuters:

“Right now various countries are exploring regulations that will shape the future of autonomous vehicles, and the U.S. risks losing its leadership in this life-saving, life-changing technology, so we urge Congress to move forward now, this year,” spokeswoman [for the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers] Gloria Bergquist said.

Since the new bill is being written with input from both chambers, this version stands a better chance of avoiding a breakdown like last year.

What Self-Awareness Looks Like

Here's a somewhat startling video showing a robot behaving self-aware, in a simple sense. The details of the experiment are described in Popular Science. But, in essence, the robot changes its answer to a question after hearing its own voice.

Technology and Physical Limits

BriYYZ - Flickr: Air France Airbus A380-800 F-HPJB

I appreciate what this presentation has to say about technology running up against physical limits, which can, ultimately, impose too great a cost to justify major new developments in a particular field. Ceglowski argues that the internet, and computing in general, will not change significantly from where it is now -- in much the same way aerospace hasn't changed significantly from where it was in the 1970s.  

Unfortunately, the presentation falls short by discounting the potential for artificial intelligence in the near future.  He dismisses it as so much craziness, without offering any real counterargument.  

Sure, current predictions may be wrong.  But we're talking about more than a few fringe thinkers.  Nick Bostrom's survey of AI experts found:

The median estimate of respondents was for a one in two chance that high- level machine intelligence will be developed around 2040-2050, rising to a nine in ten chance by 2075. Experts expect that systems will move on to superintelligence in less than 30 years thereafter.

Again, a bunch of these folks could be wrong.  But AI can no longer be written off as just science fiction.

On Email Disclaimers

On whether to create email disclaimers that have:

no qualms about indulging in the more obnoxious trademarks of legalese, including but not limited to (i) the phrase “including but not limited to”, (ii) the use of “said” as an adjective, (iii) re-naming conventions that have little to no basis in vernacular English and, regardless, never actually recur (hereinafter referred to as “the 1980 Atlanta Falcons”), (iv) redundant, tedious, and superfluous repetition of synonymous terms . . .

The whole thing is hilarious and spot on.  I think I'm going to remove said disclaimer right now.

(Via Ben Brooks)