Governing the regulators – applying experience

Emphsizing more effective law rather than more law, this paper provides a perpective from within government that argues for a better appreciation of what is required to ensure that regulation is effective in a New Zealand context. Using building controls, financial markets regulation and occupational health and safety as examples, this paper presents an analysis of the changes to the regulatory landscape, and in particular the role of regulators as a particular facet of regulatory design. • Gaye Searancke, Peter Mumford, Karl Simpson and Mark Steel are all members of the Labour and Commercial Environment Group in the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment

Society-in-the-Loop: Programming the Algorithmic Social Contract

Recent rapid advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning have raised many questions about the regulatory and governance mechanisms for autonomous machines. Many commentators, scholars, and policy-makers now call for ensuring that algorithms governing our lives are transparent, fair, and accountable. Here, I propose a conceptual framework for the regulation of AI and algorithmic systems. I argue that we need tools to program, debug and maintain an algorithmic social contract, a pact between various human stakeholders, mediated by machines. To achieve this, we can adapt the concept of human-in-the-loop (HITL) from the fields of modeling and simulation, and interactive machine learning. In particular, I propose an agenda I call society-in-the-loop (SITL), which combines the HITL control paradigm with mechanisms for negotiating the values of various stakeholders affected by AI systems, and monitoring compliance with the agreement. In short, `SITL = HITL + Social Contract.'Comment: (in press), Ethics of Information Technology, 201

Code review for and by scientists: preliminary findings

We describe two pilot studies of code review by and for scientists. Our principal findings are that scien- tists are enthusiastic, but need to be shown code re- view in action, and that just-in-time review of small code changes is more likely to succeed than large-scale end-of-work reviews

Code Review For and By Scientists

We describe two pilot studies of code review by and for scientists. Our principal findings are that scientists are enthusiastic, but need to be shown code review in action, and that just-in-time review of small code changes is more likely to succeed than large-scale end-of-work reviews.Comment: 4 page

Community Builders and Campus Bureaucrats: Student Leadership on College Campuses

Most universities provide many opportunities for students to be leaders. By placing students in these positions there exists the potential to create a unique set of challenges. This research focused on the challenges associated with leading peers on a university campus. The primary research question was, “In what ways are student leaders able to identify and describe their experiences leading their peers?” This was a case study, collecting data through focus groups and interviews, where participants discussed the experiences of leading peers. Four types of student leaders participated: Sports Team Captains, Resident Assistants, Academic Mentors and SGA Officers. The data revealed that these groups of leaders aligned into two categories: Community Builders and Campus Bureaucrats