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Friday, January 26, 2024

Popular front

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_front
Cartoon illustration on a white background and two colors: black and magenta-reddish. Three people in the centre share the magenta-reddish color with an industrial building in their background. From left to right: a worker, an intellectual and a peasant are seen trampling on a large black snake with a swastika inside white circle inscribed on its head.
Cartoon depiction of a popular front in the Romanian leftist and anti-fascist newspaper Cuvântul Liber, 1935

A popular front is "any coalition of working-class and middle-class parties", including liberal and social democratic ones, "united for the defense of democratic forms" against "a presumed Fascist assault". More generally, it is "a coalition especially of leftist political parties against a common opponent".

The term was first used in the mid-1930s in Europe by communists concerned over the ascent of fascism in Italy and Germany, which they sought to combat by coalescing with non-communist political groupings they had previously attacked as enemies. Temporarily successful popular front governments were formed in France, Spain, and Chile in 1936.

Not all political organizations who use the term "popular front" are leftist or coalitions formed to defend democratic norms (for example Popular Front of India), and not all leftist or anti-fascist coalitions use the term "popular front" in their name.

Terminology and similar groups

When communist parties came to power after World War II in the People's Republic of China, and the countries of Central, and Eastern Europe, it was common to do so at the head of a "front" (such as the United Front and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in China, the National Front in Czechoslovakia, the Front of National Unity in Poland, the Democratic Bloc in East Germany, etc.) containing several ostensibly-noncommunist parties. While it was the communist party—not the fronts—that held power in these countries, the alleged coalitions gave the Party the ability to maintain that it did not have a monopoly on power in that country.

Main article: Communist front

Another use of the word "front" in connection with communist activity was "Communist front". This phrase used "front" not in the sense of a political movement "linking divergent elements to achieve common objectives", but as a facade "used to mask" the identity/true character/activity of "the actual controlling agent", (examples being the World Federation of Democratic Youth, International Union of Students, World Federation of Trade Unions, Women's International Democratic Federation, and the World Peace Council). Communist front was a label frequently applied to political organizations opposed by anti-communists during the Cold War.

The strategy of creating or taking over organizations that would then claim to be expressions of popular will, and not manipulation by the Soviet Union or communist movement, was first suggested by Vladimir Lenin. These would not be political coalitions seeking power in opposition to fascist movements, but groups designed to spread the Marxist–Leninist message in places where the Communist party was either illegal or distrusted by many of the people the party wanted to reach. It was used from the 1920s through the 1950s, and accelerated during the popular front period of the 1930s. Eventually there were large numbers of front organizations.

Comintern policy: 1934–1939

Cover of an American communist pamphlet from the Popular Front that used patriotic themes under the slogan "Communism is the Americanism of the 20th Century."

The international communism, in the form of the Communist International (Comintern), the international communist organization created by the Russian Communist Party in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, went through a number of ideological strategies to advance proletarian revolution. Its 1922 congress called for a "United Front" (the "Second Period") after it became clear proletarian revolution would not sweep aside capitalism in the rest of the world, whereby the minority of workers who supported communist revolution would join forces against the bourgeoisie with workers outside the communist parties. This was followed by the "Third Period" starting in mid-1928, which posited that capitalism was collapsing and militant policies should by rigidly maintained,  As the Nazi Party came to power in 1933 in Germany, and annihilated one of the more successful communist movements in that country, it became clear fascism was both on the rise and saw Communism as an enemy to be destroyed, and that opposition to fascism was disorganized and divided. A new, less extreme policy was called for whereby Communists would form political coalitions with non-Communist socialists and even democratic non-socialists – "liberals, moderates, and even conservatives" – in "popular fronts" against fascism.

Germany

Until early 1933, the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) was regarded as the world's most successful communist party in terms of membership and electoral results. As a result, the Communist International, or Comintern, expected national communist parties to base their political style on the German example. That approach, known as the "class against class" strategy, or the ultra-left "Third Period", expected that the economic crisis and the trauma of war would increasingly radicalise public opinion and that if the communists remained aloof from mainstream democratic politics, they would benefit from the populist mood and be swept to power. As such, non-communist socialist parties were denounced as "social fascist".

After a series of financial crises in 1926, 1929 and 1931, public opinion in Europe was certainly radicalising but not to the benefit of left-wing anticapitalist parties. In the weeks that followed Hitler's rise to power in February 1933, the German Communist Party and the Comintern clung rigidly to their view that the Nazi triumph would be brief and that it would be a case of "after Hitler – our turn". However, as the brutality of the Nazi government became clear and there was no sign of its collapse, communists began to sense that there was a need for a radical alteration of their stance, especially as Adolf Hitler had made it clear that he regarded the Soviet Union as an enemy state.

In several countries over the previous years, a sense had grown within elements of the Communist Parties that the German model of "class against class" was not the most appropriate way to succeed in their national political contexts and that it was necessary to build some alliance to prevent the greater threat of autocratic nationalist governments. However, figures such as Henri Barbé and Pierre Célor in France and José Bullejos and Adama in Spain, who advocated greater flexibility by co-operating loyally with social-democratic parties and possibly even left-wing capitalist parties, were removed from positions of power. Predecessors to the Popular Front had existed, such as in the (later-renamed) World Committee Against War and Imperialism, but they sought not to co-operate with other parties as equals but instead to draw potential sympathisers into the orbit of the communist movement, which caused them to be denounced by the leaders of other left-wing associations.

It was thus not until 1934 when Georgi Dimitrov, who had humiliated the Nazis with his defence against charges of involvement in the Reichstag fire became the general secretary of the Comintern, and its officials became more receptive to the approach. Official acceptance of the new policy was first signalled in a Pravda article of May 1934, which commented favourably on socialist-communist collaboration. The reorientation was formalised at the Comintern's Seventh Congress in July 1935 and reached its apotheosis with the proclamation of a new policy: "The People's Front Against Fascism and War". Communist parties were now instructed to form broad alliances with all antifascist parties with the aim of securing social advance at home as well as a military alliance with the Soviet Union to isolate the fascist dictatorships. The "popular fronts" thus formed proved to be successful politically in forming governments in France, Spain and China but not elsewhere.

France

Main article: Popular Front (France)
SFIO demonstration in response to the 6 February 1934 crisis. A sign reads "Down with fascism"

In France, the collapse of a leftist government coalition of social-democrats and left-liberal republicans, followed by the far-right riots, which brought to power an autocratic right-wing government, changed the equation. To resist a slippery slope of encroachment towards authoritarianism, socialists were now more inclined to operate in the street and communists to co-operate with other antifascists in Parliament. In June 1934, Léon Blum's socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) signed a pact of united action with the French Communist Party. By October, the Communist Party had begun to suggest that the republican parties that had not sided with the nationalist government might also be included, and it accepted the offer the next July after the French government tilted even further to the right.

In May 1935, France and the Soviet Union signed a defensive alliance, and in August 1935, the 7th World Congress of the Comintern officially endorsed the Popular Front strategy. In the elections of May 1936, the Popular Front won a majority of parliamentary seats (378 deputies against 220), and Blum formed a government. In Fascist Italy, the Comintern advised an alliance between the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party, but the latter rejected the idea.

Great Britain

Main article: Popular Front (UK)

There were attempts in Great Britain to found a popular front, against the National Government's appeasement of Nazi Germany, between the Labour Party, the Liberal Party, the Independent Labour Party, the Communist Party and even rebellious elements of the Conservative Party under Winston Churchill, but they failed mainly because of opposition from within the Labour Party, which was seething with anger over communist efforts to take over union locals. In addition, the incompatibility of liberal and socialist approaches also caused many Liberals to be hostile.

United States

The Communist Party of the United States of America (CPUSA) had been quite hostile to the New Deal until 1935, but it suddenly reversed positions and tried to form a popular front with the New Dealers. It sought a joint Socialist-Communist ticket with Norman Thomas's Socialist Party of America in the 1936 presidential election, but the Socialists rejected the overture. The communists also then offered support to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The Popular Front saw the Communist Party taking a very patriotic and populist line, later called Browderism.

The Popular Front has been summarized by historian Kermit McKenzie as:

...An imaginative, flexible program of strategy and tactics, in which Communists were permitted to exploit the symbols of patriotism, to assume the role of defenders of national independence, to attack fascism without demanding an end to capitalism as the only remedy, and, most important, to enter upon alliances with other parties, on the basis of fronts or on the basis of a government in which Communists might participate.

McKenzie asserted that to be a mere tactical expedient, with the broad goals of communists for the overthrow of capitalism through revolution remaining unchanged.

Cultural historian Michael Denning has challenged the Communist Party-centric view of the US popular front, saying that the "fellow travelers" in the US actually composed the majority of the movement. In his view, Communist party membership was only one (optional) element of leftist US culture at the time.

End of popular fronts

The period suddenly came to an end with another abrupt reversal of Soviet or communist policy, where the Soviet Union signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939, dividing Central and Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence, and leading to the Soviet takeover of the Baltic Republics and Finland. Comintern parties then turned from a policy of anti-fascism to one of advocating peace with Germany, maintaining that World War II (until Germany invaded the Soviet Union and the Communist party line reversed yet again) was not a fight against Nazi aggression, but "the Second Imperialist War". Many party members quit the party in disgust at the agreement between Hitler and Stalin, but many communists in France and other countries refused to enlist in their countries' forces until June 1941 since until then, Stalin was not at war with Hitler.

Critics and defenders of policy

Leon Trotsky and his far-left supporters roundly criticised the strategy. Trotsky believed that only united fronts could ultimately be progressive and that popular fronts were useless because they included bourgeois forces such as liberals. Trotsky also argued that in popular fronts, working-class demands are reduced to their bare minimum, and the ability of the working class to put forward its own independent set of politics is compromised. That view is now common to most Trotskyist groups. Left communist groups also oppose popular fronts, but they came to oppose united fronts as well.

In a book written in 1977, the eurocommunist leader Santiago Carrillo offered a positive assessment of the Popular Front. He argued that in Spain, despite the excesses attributable to the passions of civil war, the period of coalition government in Republican areas "contained in embryo the conception of an advance to socialism with democracy, with a multi-party system, parliament, and liberty for the opposition". Carrillo, however criticised the Communist International for not taking the Popular Front strategy far enough, especially since French communists were restricted to supporting Blum's government from without, rather than becoming full coalition partners.

Soviet bloc

After World War II, most Central and Eastern European countries were ruled by coalitions between several different political parties that voluntarily chose to work together. By the time that the countries in what became the Eastern Bloc had developed into Marxist–Leninist states, the non-communist parties had pushed out those members not willing to do the communists' bidding and were taken over by fellow travellers. As a result, the front had turned into a tool of the communists. The non-communist parties were required to accept the communist party's "leading role" as a condition of their continued existence.

For example, East Germany was ruled by a "National Front" of all parties and movements within Parliament (Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Liberal Party, Farmers' Party, Youth Movement, Trade Union Federation etc.). At legislative elections, voters were presented with a single list of candidates from all parties.

The People's Republic of China's United Front is perhaps the best known example of a communist-run popular front in modern times. It is nominally a coalition of the Chinese Communist Party and eight minor parties. Though all parties had origins in independent parties prior to the Chinese Civil War, noncommunists eventually splintered out to join the Nationalists, and the parties remaining in Mainland China allied with either Communist Party sympathizers or, in some cases, actual members.

Soviet republics

In the republics of the Soviet Union, between around 1988 and 1992 (when the USSR had dissolved, and the republics were all independent), the term "Popular Front" had quite a different meaning. It referred to movements led by members of the liberal-minded intelligentsia (usually themselves members of the local Communist Party), in some republics small and peripheral but in others broad-based and influential. Officially, their aim was to defend perestroika against reactionary elements within the state bureaucracy, but over time, they began to question the legitimacy of their republics' membership of the Soviet Union. It was their initially cautious tone that gave them considerable freedom to organise and to gain access to the mass media. In the Baltic republics, they soon became the dominant political force and gradually gained the initiative from the more radical dissident organisations established earlier by moving their republics towards greater autonomy and then independence. They also became the main challengers to the communist parties' hegemony in Byelorussia, Moldavia, Ukraine, Armenia and Azerbaijan. A Popular Front was established in Georgia but remained marginal, compared to the dominant dissident-led groups, since the April 9 tragedy had radicalised society and so it was unable to play the compromise role of similar movements. In the other republics, such organisations existed but never posed a meaningful threat to the incumbent party and economic elites.

List of popular fronts

Popular fronts in non-communist countries

The French Front populaire and the Spanish Frente Popular popular fronts of the 1930s are the most notable ones.

Popular fronts in post-Soviet countries

These are non-socialist parties unless indicated otherwise:

Republic Main ethnonationalist movement (foundation date)
Russian SFSR Democratic Russia (1990)
Ukrainian SSR People's Movement of Ukraine (Narodnyi Rukh Ukrajiny) (November 1988)
Byelorussian SSR Belarusian Popular Front (October 1988), Renewal (Andradzhen'ne) (June 1989)
Uzbek SSR Unity (Birlik) (November 1988)
Kazakh SSR Nevada Semipalatinsk Movement (February 1989)
Georgian SSR Committee for National Salvation (October 1989)
Azerbaijan SSR Azerbaijani Popular Front Party Azərbaycan Xalq Cəbhəsi Partiyası; (July 1988)
Lithuanian SSR Reform Movement of Lithuania (Lietuvos Persitvarkymo Sąjūdis) (June 1988)
Moldavian SSR Popular Front of Moldova Frontul Popular din Moldova; (May 1989)
Latvian SSR Popular Front of Latvia Latvijas Tautas fronte;(July 1988)
Kirghiz SSR Openness (Ashar) (July 1989)
Tajik SSR Openness (Ashkara) (June 1989)
Armenian SSR Karabakh movement (February 1988)
Turkmen SSR Unity (Agzybirlik) (January 1990)
Estonian SSR Popular Front of Estonia (Eestimaa Rahvarinne) (April 1988)
Autonomous Republic Main ethnonationalist movement (foundation date)
Tatar ASSR Tatar Public Center (Tatar İctimağí Üzäge) (February 1989)
Checheno-Ingush ASSR All-National Congress of the Chechen People (November 1990)
Abkhaz ASSR Unity (Aidgylara) (December 1988)

These were established after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991:

  • All-Russia People's Front Общероссийский народный фронт, created in 2011 by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to provide United Russia with "new ideas, new suggestions and new faces" and intended to be a coalition between the ruling party and numerous non-United Russia nongovernmental organizations.

List of national fronts

In current communist countries

In former communist countries

at

Government by algorithm

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_by_algorithm
 
Government by algorithm (also known as algorithmic regulation, regulation by algorithms, algorithmic governance, algocratic governance, algorithmic legal order or algocracy) is an alternative form of government or social ordering where the usage of computer algorithms is applied to regulations, law enforcement, and generally any aspect of everyday life such as transportation or land registration. The term "government by algorithm" has appeared in academic literature as an alternative for "algorithmic governance" in 2013. A related term, algorithmic regulation, is defined as setting the standard, monitoring and modifying behaviour by means of computational algorithms – automation of judiciary is in its scope. In the context of blockchain, it is also known as blockchain governance.

Government by algorithm raises new challenges that are not captured in the e-government literature and the practice of public administration. Some sources equate cyberocracy, which is a hypothetical form of government that rules by the effective use of information, with algorithmic governance, although algorithms are not the only means of processing information. Nello Cristianini and Teresa Scantamburlo argued that the combination of a human society and certain regulation algorithms (such as reputation-based scoring) forms a social machine.

History

Computer-generated image of Project Cybersyn operations room
LEGOL Group (1977)
"Blockchain and the future of governance. Let's overcome the hype and understand what can be done." with Andrea Bauer, Boris Moshkovits und Shermin Voshmgir at re:publica

In 1962, the director of the Institute for Information Transmission Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow (later Kharkevich Institute), Alexander Kharkevich, published an article in the journal "Communist" about a computer network for processing information and control of the economy. In fact, he proposed to make a network like the modern Internet for the needs of algorithmic governance. This created a serious concern among CIA analysts. In particular, Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr. warned that "by 1970 the USSR may have a radically new production technology, involving total enterprises or complexes of industries, managed by closed-loop, feedback control employing self-teaching computers".

Between 1971 and 1973, the Chilean government carried out Project Cybersyn during the presidency of Salvador Allende. This project was aimed at constructing a distributed decision support system to improve the management of the national economy. Elements of the project were used in 1972 to successfully overcome the traffic collapse caused by a CIA-sponsored strike of forty thousand truck drivers.

Also in the 1960s and 1970s, Herbert A. Simon championed expert systems as tools for rationalization and evaluation of administrative behavior. The automation of rule-based processes was an ambition of tax agencies over many decades resulting in varying success. Early work from this period includes Thorne McCarty's influential TAXMAN project in the US and Ronald Stamper's LEGOL project in the UK. In 1993, the computer scientist Paul Cockshott from the University of Glasgow and the economist Allin Cottrell from the Wake Forest University published the book Towards a New Socialism, where they claim to demonstrate the possibility of a democratically planned economy built on modern computer technology. The Honourable Justice Michael Kirby published a paper in 1998, where he expressed optimism that the then-available computer technologies such as legal expert system could evolve to computer systems, which will strongly affect the practice of courts. In 2006, attorney Lawrence Lessig, known for the slogan "Code is law", wrote:

[T]he invisible hand of cyberspace is building an architecture that is quite the opposite of its architecture at its birth. This invisible hand, pushed by government and by commerce, is constructing an architecture that will perfect control and make highly efficient regulation possible

Since the 2000s, algorithms have been designed and used to automatically analyze surveillance videos.

In his 2006's book Virtual Migration, A. Aneesh developed the concept of algocracy — information technologies constrain human participation in public decision making. Aneesh differentiated algocratic systems from bureaucratic systems (legal-rational regulation) as well as market-based systems (price-based regulation).

In 2013, algorithmic regulation was coined by Tim O'Reilly, founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media Inc.:

Sometimes the "rules" aren't really even rules. Gordon Bruce, the former CIO of the city of Honolulu, explained to me that when he entered government from the private sector and tried to make changes, he was told, "That's against the law." His reply was "OK. Show me the law." "Well, it isn't really a law. It's a regulation." "OK. Show me the regulation." "Well, it isn't really a regulation. It's a policy that was put in place by Mr. Somebody twenty years ago." "Great. We can change that!" [...] Laws should specify goals, rights, outcomes, authorities, and limits. If specified broadly, those laws can stand the test of time. Regulations, which specify how to execute those laws in much more detail, should be regarded in much the same way that programmers regard their code and algorithms, that is, as a constantly updated toolset to achieve the outcomes specified in the laws. [...] It's time for government to enter the age of big data. Algorithmic regulation is an idea whose time has come.

In 2017, Ukraine's Ministry of Justice ran experimental government auctions using blockchain technology to ensure transparency and hinder corruption in governmental transactions. "Government by Algorithm?" was the central theme introduced at Data for Policy 2017 conference held on 6–7 September 2017 in London.

Examples

Smart cities

Architecture of the IoT for home care systems

A smart city is an urban area where collected surveillance data is used to improve various operations. Increase in computational power allows more automated decision making and replacement of public agencies by algorithmic governance. In particular, the combined use of artificial intelligence and blockchains for IoT may lead to the creation of sustainable smart city ecosystems. Intelligent street lighting in Glasgow is an example of successful government application of AI algorithms. A study of smart city initiatives in the US shows that it requires public sector as a main organizer and coordinator, the private sector as a technology and infrastructure provider, and universities as expertise contributors.

The cryptocurrency millionaire Jeffrey Berns proposed the operation of local governments in Nevada by tech firms in 2021. Berns bought 67,000 acres (271 km2) in Nevada's rural Storey County (population 4,104) for $170,000,000 (£121,000,000) in 2018 in order to develop a smart city with more than 36,000 residents that could generate an annual output of $4,600,000,000. Cryptocurrency will be allowed for payments. Blockchains, Inc. "Innovation Zone" was canceled in September 2021 after it failed to secure enough water for the planned 36,000 residents, through water imports from a site located 100 miles away in the neighboring Washoe County. Similar water pipeline proposed in 2007 was estimated to cost $100 million and to would have taken about 10 years to develop. With additional water rights purchased from Tahoe Reno Industrial General Improvement District, "Innovation Zone" would have acquired enough water for about 15,400 homes - meaning that it would have barely covered its planned 15,000 dwelling units, leaving nothing for the rest of the projected city and its 22 million square-feet of industrial development.

In Saudi Arabia, the planners of The Line assert that it will be monitored by AI to improve life by using data and predictive modeling.

Reputation systems

See also: Credit score
Model of cybernetic thinking about organisation. On the one hand in reality a system is determined. On the other hand, cybernetic factory can be modeled as a control system.

Tim O'Reilly suggested that data sources and reputation systems combined in algorithmic regulation can outperform traditional regulations. For instance, once taxi-drivers are rated by passengers, the quality of their services will improve automatically and "drivers who provide poor service are eliminated". O'Reilly's suggestion is based on control-theoreric concept of feed-back loop—improvements and disimprovements of reputation enforce desired behavior. The usage of feed-loops for the management of social systems is already been suggested in management cybernetics by Stafford Beer before.

These connections are explored by Nello Cristianini and Teresa Scantamburlo, where the reputation-credit scoring system is modeled as an incentive given to the citizens and computed by a social machine, so that rational agents would be motivated to increase their score by adapting their behaviour. Several ethical aspects of that technology are still being discussed.

China's Social Credit System was said to be a mass surveillance effort with a centralized numerical score for each citizen given for their actions, though newer reports say that this is a widespread misconception.

Smart contracts

Smart contracts, cryptocurrencies, and decentralized autonomous organization are mentioned as means to replace traditional ways of governance. Cryptocurrencies are currencies, which are enabled by algorithms without a governmental central bank. Central bank digital currency often employs similar technology, but is differentiated from the fact that it does use a central bank. It is soon to be employed by major unions and governments such as the European Union and China. Smart contracts are self-executable contracts, whose objectives are the reduction of need in trusted governmental intermediators, arbitrations and enforcement costs. A decentralized autonomous organization is an organization represented by smart contracts that is transparent, controlled by shareholders and not influenced by a central government. Smart contracts have been discussed for use in such applications as use in (temporary) employment contracts and automatic transfership of funds and property (i.e. inheritance, upon registration of a death certificate). Some countries such as Georgia and Sweden have already launched blockchain programs focusing on property (land titles and real estate ownership) Ukraine is also looking at other areas too such as state registers.

Algorithms in government agencies

See also: Artificial intelligence in government
Team Rubicon in the Rockaways Nov 12, 2012 - Palantir screenshot

According to a study of Stanford University, 45% of the studied US federal agencies have experimented with AI and related machine learning (ML) tools up to 2020. US federal agencies counted the number of artificial intelligence applications, which are listed below. 53% of these applications were produced by in-house experts. Commercial providers of residual applications include Palantir Technologies.

Agency Name Number of Use Cases
Office of Justice Programs 12
Securities and Exchange Commission 10
National Aeronautics and Space Administration 9
Food and Drug Administration 8
United States Geological Survey 8
United States Postal Service 8
Social Security Administration 7
United States Patent and Trademark Office 6
Bureau of Labor Statistics 5
U.S. Customs and Border Protection 4

In 2012, NOPD started a collaboration with Palantir Technologies in the field of predictive policing. Besides Palantir's Gotham software, other similar (numerical analysis software) used by police agencies (such as the NCRIC) include SAS.

In the fight against money laundering, FinCEN employs the FinCEN Artificial Intelligence System (FAIS) since 1995.

National health administration entities and organisations such as AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association) hold medical records. Medical records serve as the central repository for planning patient care and documenting communication among patient and health care provider and professionals contributing to the patient's care. In the EU, work is ongoing on a European Health Data Space which supports the use of health data.

US Department of Homeland Security has employed the software ATLAS, which run on Amazon Cloud. It scanned more than 16.5 million of records of naturalized Americans and flagged approximately 124,000 of them for manual analysis and review by USCIS officers regarding denaturalization. There were flagged due to potential fraud, public safety and national security issues. Some of the scanned data came from Terrorist Screening Database and National Crime Information Center.

The NarxCare is a US software, which combines data from the prescription registries of various U.S. states and uses machine learning to generate various three-digit "risk scores" for prescriptions of medications and an overall "Overdose Risk Score", collectively referred to as Narx Scores, in a process that potentially includes EMS and criminal justice data as well as court records.

In Estonia, artificial intelligence is used in its e-government to make it more automated and seamless. A virtual assistant will guide citizens through any interactions they have with the government. Automated and proactive services "push" services to citizens at key events of their lives (including births, bereavements, unemployment, ...). One example is the automated registering of babies when they are born. Estonia's X-Road system will also be rebuilt to include even more privacy control and accountability into the way the government uses citizen's data.

In Costa Rica, the possible digitalization of public procurement activities (i.e. tenders for public works, ...) has been investigated. The paper discussing this possibility mentions that the use of ICT in procurement has several benefits such as increasing transparency, facilitating digital access to public tenders, reducing direct interaction between procurement officials and companies at moments of high integrity risk, increasing outreach and competition, and easier detection of irregularities.

Besides using e-tenders for regular public works (construction of buildings, roads, ...), e-tenders can also be used for reforestation projects and other carbon sink restoration projects. Carbon sink restoration projects may be part of the nationally determined contributions plans in order to reach the national Paris agreement goals

Government procurement audit software can also be used. Audits are performed in some countries after subsidies have been received.

Some government agencies provide track and trace systems for services they offer. An example is track and trace for applications done by citizens (i.e. driving license procurement).

Some government services use issue tracking system to keep track of ongoing issues.

Justice by algorithm

Judges' decisions in Australia are supported by the "Split Up" software in case of determining the percentage of a split after a divorce. COMPAS software is used in USA to assess the risk of recidivism in courts. According to the statement of Beijing Internet Court, China is the first country to create an internet court or cyber court. The Chinese AI judge is a virtual recreation of an actual female judge. She "will help the court's judges complete repetitive basic work, including litigation reception, thus enabling professional practitioners to focus better on their trial work". Also Estonia plans to employ artificial intelligence to decide small-claim cases of less than €7,000.

Lawbots can perform tasks that are typically done by paralegals or young associates at law firms. One such technology used by US law firms to assist in legal research is from ROSS Intelligence, and others vary in sophistication and dependence on scripted algorithms. Another legal technology chatbot application is DoNotPay.

Algorithms in education

Further information: Ofqual exam results algorithm

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, in-person final exams were impossible for thousands of students. The public high school Westminster High employed algorithms to assign grades. UK's Department for Education also employed a statistical calculus to assign final grades in A-levels, due to the pandemic.

Besides use in grading, software systems like AI were used in preparation for college entrance exams.

AI teaching assistants are being developed and used for education (e.g., Georgia Tech's Jill Watson) and there is also an ongoing debate on whether perhaps teachers can be entirely replaced by AI systems (e.g., in homeschooling).

AI politicians

See also: Chatbot § Politics

In 2018, an activist named Michihito Matsuda ran for mayor in the Tama city area of Tokyo as a human proxy for an artificial intelligence program. While election posters and campaign material used the term robot, and displayed stock images of a feminine android, the "AI mayor" was in fact a machine learning algorithm trained using Tama city datasets. The project was backed by high-profile executives Tetsuzo Matsumoto of Softbank and Norio Murakami of Google. Michihito Matsuda came third in the election, being defeated by Hiroyuki Abe. Organisers claimed that the 'AI mayor' was programmed to analyze citizen petitions put forward to the city council in a more 'fair and balanced' way than human politicians.

In 2018, Cesar Hidalgo presented the idea of augumented democracy. In an augumented democracy, legislation is done by digital twins of every single person.

In 2019, AI-powered messenger chatbot SAM participated in the discussions on social media connected to an electoral race in New Zealand. The creator of SAM, Nick Gerritsen, believes SAM will be advanced enough to run as a candidate by late 2020, when New Zealand has its next general election.

In 2022, the chatbot "Leader Lars" or "Leder Lars" was nominated for The Synthetic Party to run in the 2022 Danish parliamentary election, and was built by the artist collective Computer Lars. Leader Lars differed from earlier virtual politicians by leading a political party and by not pretending to be an objective candidate. This chatbot engaged in critical discussions on politics with users from around the world.

In 2023, In the Japanese town of Manazuru, a mayoral candidate called "AI Mayer" hopes to be the first AI-powered officeholder in Japan in November 2023. This candidacy is said to be supported by a group led by Michihito Matsuda 

Management of infection

See also: Digital contact tracing, Disease surveillance, and COVID-19 apps
A schematic of app-based COVID-19 contact tracing

In February 2020, China launched a mobile app to deal with the Coronavirus outbreak called "close-contact-detector". Users are asked to enter their name and ID number. The app is able to detect "close contact" using surveillance data (i.e. using public transport records, including trains and flights) and therefore a potential risk of infection. Every user can also check the status of three other users. To make this inquiry users scan a Quick Response (QR) code on their smartphones using apps like Alipay or WeChat. The close contact detector can be accessed via popular mobile apps including Alipay. If a potential risk is detected, the app not only recommends self-quarantine, it also alerts local health officials.

Alipay also has the Alipay Health Code which is used to keep citizens safe. This system generates a QR code in one of three colors (green, yellow, or red) after users fill in a form on Alipay with personal details. A green code enables the holder to move around unrestricted. A yellow code requires the user to stay at home for seven days and red means a two-week quarantine. In some cities such as Hangzhou, it has become nearly impossible to get around without showing one's Alipay code.

In Cannes, France, monitoring software has been used on footage shot by CCTV cameras, allowing to monitor their compliance to local social distancing and mask wearing during the COVID-19 pandemic. The system does not store identifying data, but rather allows to alert city authorities and police where breaches of the mask and mask wearing rules are spotted (allowing fining to be carried out where needed). The algorithms used by the monitoring software can be incorporated into existing surveillance systems in public spaces (hospitals, stations, airports, shopping centres, ...) 

Cellphone data is used to locate infected patients in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and other countries. In March 2020, the Israeli government enabled security agencies to track mobile phone data of people supposed to have coronavirus. The measure was taken to enforce quarantine and protect those who may come into contact with infected citizens. Also in March 2020, Deutsche Telekom shared private cellphone data with the federal government agency, Robert Koch Institute, in order to research and prevent the spread of the virus. Russia deployed facial recognition technology to detect quarantine breakers. Italian regional health commissioner Giulio Gallera said that "40% of people are continuing to move around anyway", as he has been informed by mobile phone operators. In USA, Europe and UK, Palantir Technologies is taken in charge to provide COVID-19 tracking services.

Prevention and management of environmental disasters

See also: Early warning system

Tsunamis can be detected by Tsunami warning systems. They can make use of AI. Floodings can also be detected using AI systems. Wildfires can be predicted using AI systems. Wildfire detection is possible by AI systems (i.e. through satellite data, aerial imagery, and GPS phone personnel position) and can help in the evacuation of people during wildfires, to investigate how householders responded in wildfires and spotting wildfire in real time using computer vision. Earthquake detection systems are now improving alongside the development of AI technology through measuring seismic data and implementing complex algorithms to improve detection and prediction rates. Earthquake monitoring, phase picking, and seismic signal detection have developed through AI algorithms of deep-learning, analysis, and computational models. Locust breeding areas can be approximated using machine learning, which could help to stop locust swarms in an early phase.

Reception

Benefits

See also: Techno-progressivism

Algorithmic regulation is supposed to be a system of governance where more exact data, collected from citizens via their smart devices and computers, is used to more efficiently organize human life as a collective. As Deloitte estimated in 2017, automation of US government work could save 96.7 million federal hours annually, with a potential savings of $3.3 billion; at the high end, this rises to 1.2 billion hours and potential annual savings of $41.1 billion.

Criticism

There are potential risks associated with the use of algorithms in government. Those include algorithms becoming susceptible to bias, a lack of transparency in how an algorithm may make decisions, and the accountability for any such decisions. According to a 2016's book Weapons of Math Destruction, algorithms and big data are suspected to increase inequality due to opacity, scale and damage.

There is also a serious concern that gaming by the regulated parties might occur, once more transparency is brought into the decision making by algorithmic governance, regulated parties might try to manipulate their outcome in own favor and even use adversarial machine learning. According to Harari, the conflict between democracy and dictatorship is seen as a conflict of two different data-processing systems—AI and algorithms may swing the advantage toward the latter by processing enormous amounts of information centrally.

In 2018, the Netherlands employed an algorithmic system SyRI (Systeem Risico Indicatie) to detect citizens perceived being high risk for committing welfare fraud, which quietly flagged thousands of people to investigators. This caused a public protest. The district court of Hague shut down SyRI referencing Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The contributors of the 2019 documentary iHuman expressed apprehension of "infinitely stable dictatorships" created by government AI.

Due to public criticism, the Australian government announced the suspension of Robodebt scheme key functions in 2019, and a review of all debts raised using the programme.

In 2020, algorithms assigning exam grades to students in the UK sparked open protest under the banner "Fuck the algorithm." This protest was successful and the grades were taken back.

In 2020, the US government software ATLAS, which run on Amazon Cloud, sparked uproar from activists and Amazon's own employees.

In 2021, Eticas Foundation has launched a database of governmental algorithms called Observatory of Algorithms with Social Impact (OASI).

Algorithmic bias and transparency

Main article: Algorithmic bias

An initial approach towards transparency included the open-sourcing of algorithms. Software code can be looked into and improvements can be proposed through source-code-hosting facilities.

Public acceptance

A 2019 poll conducted by IE University's Center for the Governance of Change in Spain found that 25% of citizens from selected European countries were somewhat or totally in favor of letting an artificial intelligence make important decisions about how their country is run. The following table lists the results by country:

Country Percentage
France 25%
Germany 31%
Ireland 29%
Italy 28%
Netherlands 43%
Portugal 19%
Spain 26%
UK 31%

Researchers found some evidence that when citizens perceive their political leaders or security providers to be untrustworthy, disappointing, or immoral, they prefer to replace them by artificial agents, whom they consider to be more reliable. The evidence is established by survey experiments on university students of all genders.

In popular culture

The novels Daemon and Freedom™ by Daniel Suarez describe a fictional scenario of global algorithmic regulation. Matthew De Abaitua's If Then imagines an algorithm supposedly based on "fairness" recreating a premodern rural economy.
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World taxation system

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A world taxation system or global tax is a hypothetical system for the collection of taxes by a central international revenue service. The idea has garnered currency as a means of eliminating tax avoidance and tax competition; it has also aroused the ire of nationalists as an infringement upon national sovereignty.

Proposed international taxes

Financial transaction taxes

Discussion of a global financial transaction tax (FTT) increased in the 2000s, especially after the late-2000s recession, and especially in Europe. In 2010, a coalition of 50 charities and other NGOs began advocating for what they labelled a Robin Hood tax, which would tax transactions of stocks, bonds and other financial securities.

In 2011, the European Union (EU) proposed an EU-wide FTT, however, could not be reached among all EU countries. In 2013, 11 countries in the EU's Eurozone established the European Union financial transaction tax, estimated to generate €35 billion per year.

In 2012, a group of UN experts recommended that the United Nations adopt a FTT, estimating that the tax could bring $48-$250 billion in revenue, to be channelled to "fighting poverty, reversing growing inequality, and compensating those whose lives have been devastated by the enduring global economic crisis".

In the UK, bank taxes have been proposed as another means of worldwide taxation, as have been sales taxes. Proposals to combat the ongoing recession included the Financial stability contribution (FSC) and Financial Activities Tax (FAT). On August 30, 2009, British Financial Services Authority chairman Lord Adair Turner said it was "ridiculous" to think he would propose a new tax on London and not the rest of the world. However, in May, and June 2010, the government of Canada expressed opposition to the bank tax becoming "global" in nature.

Tobin tax

In 2009, the UN Millennium Development Goals programme was a proposed beneficiary of the Tobin Tax.

The Tobin tax is a tax on all conversions of money from one currency to another, proposed by Nobel Prize-winning American economist James Tobin. According to Dr. Stephen Spratt, "the revenues raised could be used for....international development objectives...such as meeting the Millennium Development Goals." These are eight international development goals that 192 United Nations member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed (in 2000) to achieve by the year 2015. They include reducing extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as AIDS, and developing a global partnership for development.

In 2000, a representative of a “pro-Tobin tax” NGO proposed the following: "In the face of increasing income disparity and social inequity, the Tobin Tax represents a rare opportunity to capture the enormous wealth of an untaxed sector and redirect it towards the public good. Conservative estimates show the tax could yield from $150-300 billion annually. The UN estimates that the cost of wiping out the worst forms of poverty and environmental destruction globally would be around $225 billion per year."

At the UN September 2001 World Conference against Racism, when the issue of compensation for colonialism and slavery arose on the agenda, Fidel Castro, the President of Cuba, advocated the Tobin Tax to address that issue. (According to Cliff Kincaid, Castro advocated it "specifically in order to generate U.S. financial reparations to the rest of the world," however a closer reading of Castro's speech shows that he never did mention "the rest of the world" as being recipients of revenue.) Castro cited Holocaust reparations as a previously established precedent for the concept of reparations.

Castro also suggested that the United Nations be the administrator of this tax, stating the following:

"May the tax suggested by Nobel Prize Laureate James Tobin be imposed in a reasonable and effective way on the current speculative operations accounting for trillions of US dollars every 24 hours, then the United Nations, which cannot go on depending on meager, inadequate, and belated donations and charities, will have one trillion US dollars annually to save and develop the world. Given the seriousness and urgency of the existing problems, which have become a real hazard for the very survival of our species on the planet, that is what would actually be needed before it is too late."

On March 6, 2006, US Congressman Dr Ron Paul stated the following: "The United Nations remains determined to rob from wealthy countries and, after taking a big cut for itself, send what’s left to the poor countries. Of course, most of this money will go to the very dictators whose reckless policies have impoverished their citizens. The UN global tax plan...resurrects the long-held dream of the 'Tobin Tax'. A dangerous precedent would be set, however: the idea that the UN possesses the legitimate taxing authority to fund its operations."

Wealth tax

The idea of a global wealth tax has been much discussed since the 2014 success of French economist Thomas Piketty's bestseller Capital in the Twenty-First Century. In the book, Piketty proposes that because the rate of return on capital tends to exceed total growth, inequality will tend to rise forever without government intervention. The solution he proposed is a global tax on capital. He imagined that the tax would be zero for those with less than 1 million euros, 2% for those with more than 5 million, and 5-10% for those with more than 1 billion euros. Piketty suggested the revenue could provide all global citizens with an endowment when they reach the age of 25 years.

It has been estimated that for the US, a tax of 2% on fortunes greater than US$4 million would generate US$500 billion per year. About half of that amount, about 300 billion per year, corresponds to the total developmental budget goal of 0.7% GNP of industrialised countries (see Millennium Development Goals), which would enable poorer countries to cross the threshold of economic competitivity in 15–20 years (cf. Jeffrey Sachs: The End of Poverty). Some 300 billion per year would also be necessary to limit global warming to +2 degrees Celsius and finance recovery from more frequent climate disasters. Expensive but probably inevitable strategies to slow global warming include renewable energy research, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and reforestation (or preventing deforestation).

From the 2020s, Patriotic Millionaires, a group of high net worth individuals, began calling for governments to implement wealth taxes of those with extreme wealth. In 2023, they penned an open letter to political leaders attending Davos, stating "The solution is plain for all to see. You, our global representatives, have to tax us, the ultra rich, and you have to start now." Oxfam said a tax of up to 5% on the world’s multimillionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7tn a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty.

Leading up to a 2023 finance summit in France, 100 leading economists signed a letter calling for a wealth tax on the world's richest people in order to help the poorest survive climate change.

International carbon tax

The Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which was signed by 192 countries, included a proposal for an International Emissions Trading scheme. Subsequently, this was superseded by Article 6 of the Paris Agreement which stated the principle of international carbon trading. Consequently, some national emissions trading schemes are theoretically compatible with those of other nations whose schemes have similar standards. In 2017, the EU agreed to link the European Union Emissions Trading System to the Switzerland emissions trading system.

In order not to advantage countries without a carbon price, the EU has designed the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism to come into effect in 2026, which will place tariffs on imported goods which have not been subjected to a carbon price. Similar discussions have been ongoing in the US and Australia among others. The OECD has proposed creating an international framework for such carbon border adjustments to avoid trade competition.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, has proposed an international carbon price floor, noting that four fifths of global emissions remain unpriced. However, this only requires revenue to be collected by national governments, so it not truly a global tax.

In the 2020s, there has been discussion of global carbon taxes among the international community, including the OECD, World Trade Organization and International Monetary Fund. It was suggested that a uniform global carbon tax could eliminate the need for carbon border tariffs. Some research has suggested that such a proposal could be popular if the revenue generated by the tax is paid directly to citizens, a payment known as a carbon dividend.

Carbon tax for international shipping

By 2021, global industry-wide carbon taxes were supported by groups representing 90% of the shipping industry, including the International Chamber of Shipping, Bimco, Cruise Lines International Association and the World Shipping Council. The International Maritime Organization reached agreement in 2022 that a global carbon tax for shipping should be established. However, there is wide disagreement about the price level, with proposals ranging from $150 to just $2 per tonne of fuel.

In 2023, research from CE Delft found that global shipping emissions could be cut by between a third to a half by 2030 without harming international trade. This was important since countries including China, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia had expressed opposition to the tax, on the basis that it could put international trade at risk. The World Bank has estimated a shipping carbon tax could raise $50-60 billion per year, which some countries have proposed be donated to a "loss and damage" fund, to pay for damage caused by climate change.

Sovereignty Issues

In the US and other countries' nationalist movements, the idea of global taxation arouses ire in its perception by such circles as a potential infringement upon national sovereignty.
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