Day 6 Predictions

Daniel: Our guests will probably discuss at length the challenges that Dispute Finder and most web-based cooperative tools bump into while attempting to harness input from virtual crowds. I guess they will talk about Dispute Finder’s design difficulties, such as costs and trade-offs (between precision and recall, between user-friendliness and number / quality of features, etc). They’ll most likely also summon stories from the interviews discussed in the document we received, perhaps to illustrate content-layer problems with measurement of "information sources reliability"; users’ misunderstandings / trouble with logic operations; and group biases. I would love to hear their views on the proposed use of Turks to improve the database of disputed claims and arguments, as well as on the current biases of the disputed facts / arguments presently listed by the software.

Emily: Dispute Finder bears an inherent flaw: individuals, not algorithms, decide whom and what to trust for information. Consider your wristwatch. If your watch starts to fumble and get the time wrong, you might try to fix the watch—you probably hope and pray your watch starts giving you accurate, dependable information because you like (or, maybe you love) your watch. But, if it continues to betray your trust and the people in your trusted circle insist your watch is wrong, you give up. You decide to trust a new watch for, but your new watch will probably be reminiscent of your old watch with respect to personal taste, experience, and preferences.

Most people are intuitive enough (though they don’t necessarily convert insights into complex conclusions about source x versus source y) to know that 120 seconds of live, relatively unedited sound on Fox News Live or MSNBC Dayside is less likely to contain factually accurate information – even if relatively unimportant, like the location of a fire, or the total number of casualties in a mass shooting— than a compulsively edited, fact-checked tome in the Sunday NY Times magazine, the Economist, or the New Yorker.

Then, there’s this idea that organizations are run by people, not computers. And people are responsible (or should be responsible) for the content they produce. Back to Dispute Finder. Why a person would need or want Dispute Finder (or a report from a reporter who uses software like Dispute Finder) to affirm intuitions about the accuracy of information is unclear.

Article 3.5 of the Dispute Finder document, “Determining Trustworthy Sources,” seems a bit absurd. It actually acknowledges the marketability challenges of its own software: “Unfortunately…the sites people actually trust are often those that share the person’s own point of view.” So, again, what is this software and what, really, is the point? Segway into ‘Cross-cutting themes.’ Save the world. How? Is Dispute Finder intended to help people sue other people for libel? Richard Jewel (now deceased) had a reasonably compelling case. That’s probably why he successfully sued (for libel) every organization, from CNN, to NBC, to the NY Post. All settled. He collected from each of them. But Richard Jewel didn’t need help from Dispute Finder. Richard Jewel had a case.

Cross-cutting themes: “Change the technology, save the world.” Okay, why not? Isn’t there something else smart people at Intel and UC Berkeley could be doing to make the world better? Last November, the New York Times produced an alarming story [1] about the food stamp program in America(“now expanding at a pace of about 20,000 people a day.”) Also no shortage of children in custody. Last December, the New York Times obtained – and reported on [2]— a “confidential draft report” prepared by a task force appointed by NY gov David Paterson: “New York State’s current approach fails the young people who are drawn into the system, the public whose safety it is intended to protect, and the principles of good governance that demand effective use of scarce state resources.” Story also says the situation was so bad that the DOJ, at one point, was threatening to “take over.”

So, if Intel is interested in contributing, how about addressing real problems—helping real people— that could affect real, collective societal change and improvement? Children and education seem like obvious places to start. Basics like hardware and mentors could go a long way. Children in poverty struggle with range of issues, including asthma, low self-esteem, obesity, and depression. Consider children in places like the South Bronx (Jonathan Kozol’s children [3]): allocation of resources in places like this (and/or lower-middle class communities), especially from companies like Intel, could change lives; give voices to people from whom we do not often hear.

Predictions. Guests will be nice. Class will be nice. Short of asking about the specifics of marketing strategy, target demographic, maybe we could ask a general question about the business model?