Four short links: 12 September 2016
Generating Speech, Algorithm Employers, Internet-Scale Services, and Unfair Predictions
- A Generative Model for Raw Audio — DeepMind generates speech and it’s…wow. The breathing and mouth noises, the babbling…it’s astonishing.
- Suing To Establish An Algorithm Is An Employer (FT) — Some gig-economy workers and unions are bringing this question to court. They argue that these companies’ algorithms exert so much control over workers that they are really employees in the eyes of the law and thus owed hourly minimum wages, sick pay, holiday pay, and the like. (via Slashdot)
- Designing and Deploying Internet-Scale Services (PDF) — 2007 paper that’s still very relevant today. (via Adrian Colyer)
- Stuck in a Pattern — In an overwhelming majority of cases, departments operate predictive systems with no apparent governing policies, and open public discussion about the adoption of these systems seems to be the exception to the rule. Though federal and state grant money has helped fuel the adoption of these systems, that money comes with few real strings in terms of transparency, accountability, and meaningfully involving the public.
