This podcast was originally published in Harvard Business Review. In this episode of HBR’s podcast After Hours, Professors Youngme Moon, Felix Oberholzer-Gee, and Mihir Desai debate Airbnb’s recent emphasis on superhosts (professional investors) and how well the company is managing growth amid backlash from cities like New York City. “There are these amazing network economics, it’s […]
This article was originally published in the Harvard Business Review. Marriott recently teamed up with Amazon to offer a hospitality version of the e-commerce giant’s Echo devices in select hotel rooms. Now, when guests want to order room service or housekeeping, they can simply ask Alexa, the voice of their disembodied personal concierge. Travelers with […]
This post was originally published in the Digital Initiative’s classroom blogging platform. It’s an urban legend with surprising ubiquity: the best time to buy plane tickets is Tuesday. While that may be a myth, consumers still go to extreme measures to find deals among airfare fluctuations. Today, companies are using machine learning to predict drops […]
There’s a classic story about a statistician who, while at a county fair, happens upon a competition to guess the butchered weight of an ox. He compared individual guesses with the median guess of the crowd and found that while individual estimates varied widely, the group as a whole came within 1% from the ox’s […]
Upwork went first. The talent network that matches freelancers with companies made its initial public offering (IPO) in October 2018. Upwork’s IPO was the first “gig economy” business to go public. Next came Lyft in March. The Lyft IPO gained a lot of momentum, despite the fact the company has yet to yield a profit. […]
This article originally appeared on digital HKS’ Medium. A variety of centers and individuals have tried to define Public Interest Technology (PIT) and those working to advance it. Sasha Costanza-Chock of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), echoing how many refer to Public Interest Law, defines PIT as “people working to use technology for social […]
This article originally appeared in Harvard Magazine. On March 18, 2018, at around 10 P.M., Elaine Herzberg was wheeling her bicycle across a street in Tempe, Arizona, when she was struck and killed by a self-driving car. Although there was a human operator behind the wheel, an autonomous system—artificial intelligence—was in full control. This incident, […]
This post originally appeared in ODBMS Industry Watch. I have interviewed Giovanni Buttarelli, head of the European Data Protection Supervisor. We talked about the mission of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Digital Ethics, AI, China, USA, Tech companies, Democracy and many more… Q1. What is the mission of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS)? […]
This article originally appeared in Quartz. It’s one thing when companies use algorithms to personalize ads for shoes or tag you in a Facebook photo — it’s quite another when algorithms get to decide whether to release you on bail or send you to prison. While many have voiced concerns about using algorithms to inform […]
How and why artificial intelligence is being used in the criminal justice system is coming under increasing scrutiny. Research has exposed the way applications intended to remove human bias are instead exasperating existing inequalities within the system. One of the drivers of this problem is the gap between the decision-makers who are trying to use […]
