356 research outputs found
The evolution of digital dominance: how and why we got to GAFA
Apple, Alphabet (Google), Microsoft, Amazon, and Facebook are now the five most valuable public companies in the world by market capitalization. This is the first time ever that technology (“tech”) companies have so dominated the stock market -- even more than at the end of the 1990s’ Internet bubble. They are a large part of everyday life in developed economies and increasingly elsewhere. They wield enormous power, raising difficult questions about their governance, regulation, and accountability. This chapter is about how and why this came about
Changing a semantics: opportunism or courage?
The generalized models for higher-order logics introduced by Leon Henkin, and
their multiple offspring over the years, have become a standard tool in many
areas of logic. Even so, discussion has persisted about their technical status,
and perhaps even their conceptual legitimacy. This paper gives a systematic
view of generalized model techniques, discusses what they mean in mathematical
and philosophical terms, and presents a few technical themes and results about
their role in algebraic representation, calibrating provability, lowering
complexity, understanding fixed-point logics, and achieving set-theoretic
absoluteness. We also show how thinking about Henkin's approach to semantics of
logical systems in this generality can yield new results, dispelling the
impression of adhocness. This paper is dedicated to Leon Henkin, a deep
logician who has changed the way we all work, while also being an always open,
modest, and encouraging colleague and friend.Comment: 27 pages. To appear in: The life and work of Leon Henkin: Essays on
his contributions (Studies in Universal Logic) eds: Manzano, M., Sain, I. and
Alonso, E., 201
Safety, the Preface Paradox and Possible Worlds Semantics
This paper contains an argument to the effect that possible worlds semantics renders
semantic knowledge impossible, no matter what ontological interpretation is given
to possible worlds. The essential contention made is that possible worlds semantic
knowledge is unsafe and this is shown by a parallel with the preface paradox
Direct and indirect aboutness topics
We propose a definition of aboutness topicality that not only encompasses individual denoting DPs, but also indefinites. We concentrate on the interpretative effects of marking indefinites as topics: they either receive widest scope in their clause, or they are interpreted in the restrictor of an overt or covert Q-adverb. We show that in the first case they are direct aboutness topics insofar as they are the subject of a predication expressed by the comment, while in the second case they are indirect aboutness topics: they define the subject of a higher-order predication — namely the set of situations that the respective Q-adverb quantifies over
Completeness in hybrid type theory
We show that basic hybridization (adding nominals and @ operators) makes it possible to give straightforward Henkin-style completeness proofs even when the modal logic being hybridized is higher-order. The key ideas are to add nominals as expressions of type t, and to extend to arbitrary types the way we interpret @i in propositional and first-order hybrid logic. This means: interpret @iαa, where αa is an expression of any type a, as an expression of type a that rigidly returns the value that αa receives at the i-world. The axiomatization and completeness proofs are generalizations of those found in propositional and first-order hybrid logic, and (as is usual in hybrid logic) we automatically obtain a wide range of completeness results for stronger logics and languages. Our approach is deliberately low-tech. We don’t, for example, make use of Montague’s intensional type s, or Fitting-style intensional models; we build, as simply as we can, hybrid logic over Henkin’s logic.submittedVersionFil: Areces, Carlos Eduardo. Universidad Nacional de CĂłrdoba. Facultad de Matemática, AstronomĂa y FĂsica; Argentina.Fil: Blackburn, Patrick. University of Roskilde. Centre for Culture and Identity. Department of Philosophy and Science Studies; Dinamarca.Fil: Huertas, Antonia. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya; España.Fil: Manzano, MarĂa. Universidad de Salamanca; España.Ciencias de la ComputaciĂł
Fall and redemption: Monitoring and engaging in social media conversations during a crisis
Social media content can spread quickly, particularly that generated by
users themselves. This is a problem for businesses as user-generated content (UGC)
often portrays brands negatively and, when mishandled, may turn into a crisis. This
paper presents a framework for crisis management that incorporates insights from
research on social media users’ behaviour. It looks beyond specific platforms and
tools, to develop general principles for communicating with social media users. The
framework’s relevance is illustrated via a widely publicised case of detrimental UGC.
The paper proposes that, today, businesses need to identify relevant social media
platforms, to monitor sentiment variances, and to go beyond simplistic metrics with
content analysis. They also need to engage with online communities and the new
influencers, and to respond quickly in a manner that is congruent with said social
media platforms and their users’ expectations. The paper extends the theoretical
understanding of crisis management to consider the role of social media as both a
cause and a solution to those crises. Moreover, it bridges information management theory and practice, providing practical managerial guidance on how to monitor and
respond to social media content, particularly during fast-evolving crises
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The ownership of digital infrastructure: Exploring the deployment of software libraries in a digital innovation cluster
Boundary resources have been shown to enable the arm’s-length relationships between platform owners and third-party developers that underlie digital innovation in platform ecosystems. While boundary resources that are owned by open-source communities and smaller-scale software vendors are also critical components in the digital infrastructure, their role in digital innovation has yet to be systematically explored. In particular, software libraries are popular boundary resources that provide functionality without the need for continued interaction with their owners. They are used extensively by commercial vendors to enable customization of their software products, by communities to disseminate open-source software, and by big-tech platform owners to provide functionality that does not involve control. This paper reports on the deployment of such software libraries in the web and mobile (Android) contexts by 107 startup companies in London. Our findings show that libraries owned by big-tech companies, product vendors, and communities coexist; that the deployment of big-tech libraries is unaffected by the scale of the deploying startup; and that context evolution paths are consequential for library deployment. These findings portray a balanced picture of digital infrastructure as neither the community-based utopia of early open-source research nor the dystopia of the recent digital dominance literature
Quantum value indefiniteness
The indeterministic outcome of a measurement of an individual quantum is
certified by the impossibility of the simultaneous, definite, deterministic
pre-existence of all conceivable observables from physical conditions of that
quantum alone. We discuss possible interpretations and consequences for quantum
oracles.Comment: 19 pages, 2 tables, 2 figures; contribution to PC0
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