Digital Television and the Allure of Auctions: The Birth and Stillbirth of DTV Legislation

Although relatively few provisions of the 1996 Telecommunication Act relate to digital broadcast television, these provisions have contributed to the ongoing debate over assignment of spectrum for DTV uses. Attention to the disputed issues of DTV has accentuated the differences between methods of spectrum management: how spectrum should be assigned among various services and users, and what roles the FCC and Congress should play. Two camps have emerged from the controversy: one viewing spectrum as a commodity that should be assigned by auction, the other viewing spectrum as a resource that must be allocated according to strict technical criteria and assigned sometimes by auction, sometimes not. In an order released as this article was going to press, the FCC adopted rules for the allocation spectrum for DTV. Although the DTV issues have been resolved (for the time-being, at least), examination of the process by which the Congress and the FCC allocated this spectrum will be helpful for future allocation of spectrum, for this or other uses

Public Television and Pluralistic Ideals

Achieving pubilc service pluralism in the Unites States context is so idiosyncratic, so much a product of particular historic and governmental developments, that it is diffi cult to draw lessons that are useful for the United Kingdom. The differences are rooted in the distinct (1) role of federally licensed commercial stations; (2) expectations about the contributions of public broadcasting to pluralism in program offerings; and (3) structures of public broadcasting. In this brief essay, we try to show what aspects of pluralism and diversity are valued in the very special case of US media policy and how the idea of public service plays out at a time when an increasingly fractionated society faces a fractionated array of media offerings

ALGORITHMIC AUDITING: CHASING AI ACCOUNTABILITY

Calls for audits to expose and mitigate harms related to algorithmic decision systems are proliferating,3 and audit provisions are coming into force—notably in the E.U. Digital Services Act.4 In response to these growing concerns, research organizations working on technology accountability have called for ethics and/or human rights auditing of algorithms and an Artificial Intelligence (AI) audit industry is rapidly developing, signified by the consulting giants KPMG and Deloitte marketing their services.5 Algorithmic audits are a way to increase accountability for social media companies and to improve the governance of AI systems more generally. They can be elements of industry codes, prerequisites for liability immunity, or new regulatory requirements.6 Even when not expressly prescribed, audits may be predicates for enforcing data-related consumer protection law, or what U.S. Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter calls “algorithmic justice.” 7 The desire for audits reflect a growing sense that algorithms play an important, yet opaque, role in the decisions that shape people’s life chances—as well as a recognition that audits have been uniquely helpful in advancing our understanding of the concrete consequences of algorithms in the wild and in assessing their likely impacts.

Algorithmic Transparency for the Smart City

As artificial intelligence and big data analytics increasingly replace human decision making, questions about algorithmic ethics become more pressing. Many are concerned that an algorithmic society is too opaque to be accountable for its behavior. An individual can be denied parole or credit, fired, or not hired for reasons that she will never know and which cannot be articulated. In the public sector, the opacity of algorithmic decision making is particularly problematic, both because governmental decisions may be especially weighty and because democratically elected governments have special duties of accountability

Urbanism Under Google: Lessons from Sidewalk Toronto

Cities around the world are rapidly adopting digital technologies, data analytics, and the trappings of “smart” infrastructure. These innovations are touted as solutions to help rationalize services and address rising urban challenges, whether in housing, transit, energy, law enforcement, health care, waste management, or population flow. Promises of urban innovation unite cities’ need for help with technology firms’ need for markets and are rarely subject to evidentiary burdens about projected benefits (let alone costs). For the city, being smart is about functioning better and attracting tech plaudits. For the technology company, the smart city is a way to capture the value of data flows—either by directly monetizing behavioral insights or by using those insights to design or acquire services—and then realizing the network effects and monopoly rents that have characterized information technology platforms. No company is more ambitious about exploring data flows and seeking to create and dominate networks of information than Google. In October 2017, Google affiliate Sidewalk Labs embarked on its first prototype smart city in Toronto, Canada, through a collaboration with the public development authority Waterfront Toronto. Together, the project partners are planning a new kind of data-driven urban environment: “the world’s first neighborhood built from the internet up.” The vision is for a neighborhood featuring state-of-the-art sustainable architecture, autonomous vehicles, sensor-based surveillance, and data-driven “responsive” services. Much of the vision draws from leading city planning ideas and foregrounds progressive ideals of inclusivity and sustainability. However, for the crucial first eighteen months of the venture, many of the most consequential features of the Sidewalk Toronto project were hidden from view and unavailable for serious scrutiny. On basic questions about the proposed set of innovations, the players defied public accountability: questions about data collection, data control, privacy, competition, and procurement. Even more basic questions about the use of public space went unanswered: privatized services, land ownership, infrastructure ownership, and, in all cases, the question of who is in control. The net result is that there can be no confidence that the Sidewalk Toronto vision is compatible with democratic processes, sustained public governance, or the public interest. This Article analyzes the Sidewalk Toronto project as it took shape in its first phase, prior to the release of the Master Innovation and Development Plan, and explores three major governance challenges posed by the imagined “city of the future”: privatization, platformization, and domination. The significance of this case study applies well beyond Toronto. Google and related companies are modeling future business growth embedded in cities and using projects like Sidewalk Toronto as test beds. What happens in Toronto is designed to be replicated. We conclude with some lessons highlighting the precarity of civic stewardship and public accountability when cities are confronted with tantalizing visions of privatized urban innovation