NOZERO

Algorit(h)mic Discrimin(i)ation 

Peggy: Interest in what is going on with Design optimization. History of cybernetics, pshycology, marketing -- well-being industry

"the guy that designed infinite scroll resigning"

keeping people inside the apps -- but the same people forbid their kids to use smartphones

they are aware of their collective impact
inside all this, there is also a questin of discrimination at play
bcause the possibility to stop using is not equally or distributed in a way that everyone 

Ref. Uber -- it seems about freedom, choice, independence. But it is keeping people in the loop.

Less obvious than border control but it is a lot.

What space do we have in front of those things?

not just look i-border control but in relation with another object/device/technology.

It is about the logic of optimization: capturing environments/movements to use this to extract value.
How to get to the political economy in Europe.

It is a global infrastructure of overcapitalized infrastructures.

[looking at the way 'bike-sharing' works, and produces extreme wasteful optimization with risks externalized to environment, users, laborers]
https://www.ft.com/video/f1b20ad0-fbe2-4a59-a970-2bb4513982f7

i-border control exists within that. 

Industry of well-being and what neuro-science works with that, uses this knowledge.

The empirics of Peggy (experiences, empiric observations): it is already going on.

Luke Stark and anxiety issues. Wants to do a history of digital personality tracking (..)
An industry that has been pushing a cultural shift ... infrastructure takes elements from that.
https://starkcontrast.co/book

As we're in capitalism w/ individualism patterns, division of labour (or everything) those tools are emphasizing things that have already been prepared for a long time. 

Ideology behing the relationship of human and technology directed towards a certain ideology of a particular optimization with a distrust of humans


distrust in human after 2nd ww > replacing social structure by 

removing institutional/social infrastructure; replacing it by optimisation with a distrust in humans.

two strands: people believing in operations and management and people leaving in singularity

ethos capital acquiring TLD for .org while ICANN removing the caps on pricing: with the likely  consequence that civil society will loose its ability to keep its domain names.

how do we not go into despair? (or work with it)
to do it as a study:  there is no framework for that
There is a sense that there is a lot of noise. 

disapointing event in Bxl doing some research on technology and its problems 
https://edgeryders.eu/
Shallow proposals: 'we just need ...' (quoete of the day : noise + money, don't your get it)

If (only) we could find a way to speak about this differently ... 
to speak about problems in an integrating way

people are getting sidetracked
not remaining in the same framework

'these technologies are coming, we need to deal with discrimination'.

https://logicmag.io/nature/a-giant-bumptious-litter/?fbclid=IwAR13RpmuwM17aSvo6V-G5EDWF8MpxKunBf-1KuTfExrDsfCK1BHFvCWNv3
"I’m very pro-technology, but I belong to a crowd that is quite skeptical of the projects of what we might call the “techno-fix,” in part because of their profound immersion in technocapitalism and their disengagement from communities of practice. 

Those communities may need other kinds of technologies than those promised by the techno-fix: different kinds of mortgage instruments, say, or re-engineered water systems. I’m against the kind of techno-fixes that are abstracted from place and tied up with huge amounts of technocapital. This seems to include most geoengineering projects and imaginations. 

So when I see massive solar fields and wind farms I feel conflicted, because on the one hand they may be better than fracking in Monterey County — but only maybe. Because I also know where the rare earth minerals required for renewable energy technologies come from and under what conditions. We still aren’t doing the whole supply-chain analysis of our technologies. So I think we have a long way to go in socialist understanding of these matters." 

(...) 

To figure out how, with each other, we can open up possibilities for what can still be. And we can’t do that in in a negative mood. We can’t do that if we do nothing but critique. We need critique; we absolutely need it. But it’s not going to open up the sense of what might yet be. It’s not going to open up the sense of that which is not yet possible but profoundly needed. 

The established disorder of our present era is not necessary. It exists. But it’s not necessary." 

Working through a history that is an integrated take on this technology could work

Shift out of the framework > change the lenses 

Optimization as a thread that binds different problems togehter; using multiple

The unfold thing: image recognition in forestry areas
Where they use Lidar to detect people hiding, for their own safety
There is something enigmatic in these projects, and it would be interesting to connect it with something banal
Day to day frameworks
Something as truly crazy as the iBorder project
It is so shockingly real
To see how we can draw a connection to something that is working in an app

What you are describing and what we are experiencing and observing
the super large and small are being folded together
fruition, convergence whatever you want to call it, all things are starting to optimize together in the interest of some and not others

facial recognition:
About IBorder Ctrl: 
https://iborderctrl.no/ --> critique of the project, advertised
https://www.iborderctrl.eu/ --> EU project

https://foldout.eu/
"FOLDOUT focus is on through foliage detection in the inner and outermost regions of the EU. The FOLDOUT platform will assist border guards by providing prompt detection of illegal activity at borders and trace the movement and routes prior to arrival in border areas"

Taking it apart: micro expression is it pseudo-science. Accuracy based arguments. They are bull-shit anyhow.
But the response will be: 'we need more data'
But what does it mean to ask the project to do better?

Once systems in place, it needs to be used, ie people need to be caught.
Oscar Gandi: hide the risks involved and errors they make.

They will always be experimental. It will experiment with people. We need to ask what it means to experiment on/at the border.
adding to the dismantlement of the human rights at the border if there is some left 

It is not about reducing errors.
Who pays for the errors. Nobody pays for the mistakes.

once you are in an optimized process, you can not go back



so what institutions are being dismantled?

you can not undo this; only more data, or .. incentivising more data, centralisation.
who wins are the ones that can consolidate.

testing with different valuesets ... vs merging criteria. 
technology as a way to undercut differences between countries. homogenisation of a denominator (which one?)
political agency restructured through infrastructure.

it is being implemented/piloted 
trying to see what the future of this is, how it is embedded/implemented after project stops.

Changes the efficiency of law. From forms of accountability to systems and machines.
'if you lie, you are suspicious'. It makes you already lose your right. 
Making law less porous. Difficult for contextual decisions.

To not be romantic about the border policing by people.

Resistance, rights, survival -- possibilities.

Reading text: relation with 7 emotions, and bad science.

it was a science that was put into place for a colonial economy
during the experiments, they had different levels of results from one populaton to the other
like with Japanese, duh!
now they are using a universal system
the guy who did the 7 universal emotions did not have this system in mind
it is being subject to a new ideology for a very different purposes

yes,but it is now replaced by 725 emotions that are culturally diverse and current
would that system be better!? no, but it is just that, there is something
that i also fall into it
the stupidity of these systems are staggering
and it seems to be the point
to not confuse that what is efficient: it is not efficient in that it works
but it works on quite a different level
and, not critiquing the object infront of us, but what it tries to do somewhere else

and what the article it does is to show how this system does not work, it isnot accurate, has errors
it doesn't look at the potential infrastructures that it is about to critique
because they are booundless, they are out of the frame, they don't fit in scientific articles
how do you do this other story telling
that sees the flaws in the technology, because that is a sign of it smoke and mirrors
people have been busy with this
CS people working hard to optimize the lie detection etc.

this tells us that it is not about this
but how to think about  and respond to the infrastructural level that this is operating at
the inevitability, i mean, how the fuck coudl this thing be funded
how is it possible to get this funded and what will it do?!

the idea i had in mind was about the ideologies
why are people accepting it:  because they believe that foreigners from certain countries will be a burden to the EU
they want to think that this technology will bring this solution to this urgency, it will bring some end to it


i wonder: there is the techno optimism, we have technology and we want to use it
problems we can shoot algorithms at
thinking also that you can keep EU free of lying subjects more efficiently
you can do  away with institutional life that organizes critique and trouble on another level
when these systems connect to what uber is doing, and your apps on  your phones
and depends on the same companies and infrastructures
and, these companies are in bed with anyone that wants to not care for the complexities of life
the ideology is not an accident


how do we do the critique on the level of the object and the bigger  critique!?

http://arkadizaides.com/talos --> https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/86712/factsheet/en

(also http://arkadizaides.com/infini-1 )

people fall for this because they think that this can solve a problem.

there is the fraud factor: they all seem like fraud, and by taking them seriously, we end up biting the bait, cause they want to look serious

if you see:
    talos
    iborderctrl
    foldout
    
if you see them in relation to each other...

Who is involved in this?

? i //l have been made with the use of Ai in the justice system ?
Using AI in law ... who is working on this
Mireille Hildebrandt https://www.cohubicol.com


How do these projects interact with law. How serious do we take them?

Systems that replace the law; adjudicating the everyday
 

we discussed some of this from a discussion we had in berlin last week
about copyright and exante decisions and lack of porousness
but they tried to correct it within the frame
thinking that algorithms could or should get it right

'These' systems are not democratic.
they are anti-thetical to it.
these are infrastructures of dispossession

law still seems fallible
these systems claim to be better than humans and not fallible
except that it won't work

i liked what javi and lina said about the extendability of law in territory
when you about the detention centers
where the law does not expand, 
but at the periphery, they can expand

the systems they use, these people do not have the papers
from the point of the law: they have no right to be here
but from the legal perspective: they are not evenin schengen territory yet
they want to avoid that they  come into the schengen territory
so they expand outsideof the territory
and even inside there is some fluidity as to what needs to be applied and not

topological atlas
nishat
is working on this
the de-territorialization of borders
it is not so much about where you are but who you are
so, the borders are not just shifting, since they operate in turkey and pakistan
how do they reach to other territories
but it is also obvious that for some people it is in pakistan and for others it is elsewhere
that seems to somehow be an image that we recognize from uber's  ideas of efficient mobility

there is an interest in borders not being recognizable or physical but still being used as references

if we go back to the larger critique of optimization and how these systems connect to that!?
there was a cell phone in the video
https://youtu.be/kbxY7Xg10VE
keeping your phone or not  becomes an act of  suspicion
but it is also something of use to companies that provide telecommunications infrastructures
if people would shut their phones off all the time, this would not work
i want to think about how the project links to other 'projects' of optimization?


there is no way any of these border projects would exist without the optimization infrastructure in place.

EU trying to do you your 'own' infrastructure. 
Ref: medical data, and appliances using US-based cloud infra.

Counter imperial projects, projects that claim autonomy, decoupling (before: Balkanization)

when i teach: my students don't know what is going on
the level of information to be able to say: this is not ok, and i don't want to do this,  or i want to do it in a different way
where it is actually impcting concentration and relationship to everything
i think it is adding levels of inequality
the price of no concentration is already different if you are fragile
and, this is the thing i am reading about with kids
the brain is still developing
the way tablets and apps are designed, are making the brain work in ways that are adding to the social problems they already have
like learning in school
it is adding layers of inequality

does it do so differently than other systems of oppression?
it is triggering some aspects, like how the body works, a little bit like junk food and sugar
if you eat junk food as a kid, your body will react to it differently
then if you have time to eat some other thing
it is  not that it is just something better
but you are used to it
the rewarding circuit
how your satisfaction, the need tobe satisfied is working
there are layers of this that are pushing on it
that you have to work harder to get rid of it
the way junk food works, or ads work


what i am reading right now makes me uncomfortable in a way
that all what we have been thinking of as a possibility to be space for resistance towards mass media
it is not working, and it is narrowing
in a way that is actually
am i getting old?!
i can seeit already at work
even my kid is seeing this
he said: a friend is not doing well in school, but he is always on his tablet
he is  seeing  the connection
and a lot of studies are stressing  on this
it is not about first  shooter games
it is something else and more insiduous
especially, when people start to use it at an age  that they cannot choose
like the infinite scroll
things are not distirbuted in a socially just way
those apps and interfaces are working on a layer that is as deep  as junk food
which is that your body  responds
and in order to be able to resist
you need privilege or you are so underprivileged that you don't have access to it


when i read the interviews with these designers and they  say they live on  mountains without phones 
i get angry
it is class thing

starting from this: i want to look at how we can resist

i think we are beyond the vectorial class (mckenzie wark)
there is so much myth of or narrations of inevitability
i get sensitive

i have a problem right now
there are so many articles that go in the same direction
and we don't have counter-narratives
and  we always have something to do

yes, much of the critique confirms their power
how can you look at these systems and see what they do and not confirm "this is how it is"
H2020 Secure societies work program
see also here for "related projects" 
https://foldout.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FOLDOUT_De11_3-FINAL.pdf


what is working is to remind people of why the discussions are going a certain way. Keep changing the frame! 
but this can also freak people out.

ofcourse question is how to keep this accessible


collect examples of failure -- lime?

what empowers?
what critiques?


after next meeting December 20, 17:30: http://constantvzw.org/site/Measured-poises-crowd-noises.html


Özlem Demirel ?
http://www2.europarl.europa.eu/meps/fr/197468/OZLEM_DEMIREL/other-activities/written-questions-other
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2019-002653_EN.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/15/lie-detectors-with-artificial-intelligence-are-future-of-border-security.html

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The projects we will try to map:

(Talos)
FOLDOUT -- https://foldout.eu/ € 8 199 387,75
i-borderctrl -- https://www.iborderctrl.eu/
persona -- Elo http://persona-project.eu/

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Compare the three projects:



20/12/2019 Meeting at Hacktiris

Lots of enthusiasm shared about the FootFall Almanac 2019 in expectation of the walk at 5.30pm

Impression of the projects:
    not easy or maybe they don't exist to find output
there are pictures, and announcements but there is no material information to be found as to what they did there and what the results were

Publications should mention publication funding -- look for funding number in google scholar

Persona Report (Elodie)


Testing the waters: can we get away with this? Ref. Schiphol test


User Acceptance Research / Technology Acceptance Model -- information systems theory. Quantitave models for what will be acceptable. BI (Behavioral Intention). 
- perceived usefulness
- perceived ease of use
- social acceptance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technology_acceptance_model

BEID - because everybody is different

Forceful, prominent theory quite active now

Partners:
public + private, incl. VUB 
'Peace research' -> do security studies
ATOS French Military? ref. ATOS-origine, Philips -- Banks + security
Queen Mary university 
Israel
Serbia
Inov INESC INOVACAO
http://persona-project.eu/
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/787123


Papers that were funded by Persona:
Critical Infrastructure Security Against Drone Attacks Using Visual Analytics
    https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-34995-0_65

Dense and Small Object Detection in UAV Vision based on Cascade Network
http://openaccess.thecvf.com/content_ICCVW_2019/papers/VISDrone/Zhang_Dense_and_Small_Object_Detection_in_UAV_Vision_Based_on_ICCVW_2019_paper.pdf


Flow management > shop management > 
https://thecorrespondent.com/154/europe-spends-billions-stopping-migration-good-luck-figuring-out-where-the-money-actually-goes/171168048128-fac42704

FOLDOUT
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/787021/de

Research topics at AIT
https://www.ait.ac.at/en/research-topics/

Accredited: Testing Lab & Certification body for Persons
Acoustics and Noise Abatement in the Transport Sector
Active and Assisted Living
Advanced Implant Solutions
Autonomous Systems
Battery Technologies
Bioinformatics
Biosensor Technologies
Biosignal Processing
Capturing Experience
Cardiovascular Diagnostics
Casting Technologies
Complex Dynamical Systems
Crisis and Disaster Management
Cyber Security
Data Science
Dependable Systems Engineering
Digital Resilient Cities
Environmental Pathogen Detection
Experience Measurement
Forming Technologies
Future Interface Paradigms
High-Performance Vision
Improvement of Plant Quality + Vigor
Innovation Dynamics & Modelling
Innovation Systems & Digitalisation
Institutional Change & Policy Instruments
Integrated Energy Systems
Integrated Mobility Systems
Medical Research Networks
Medical Sensing Solutions
Microbe-assisted Crop Production
Microbial Genome Mining & Strain Improvement
Mobility Data Collection and Analysis
Molecular Imaging
New Sensor Technologies
Photovoltaics
Physical Layer Security
Point of Care Diagnostics & Biosensors
Process Simulation
Propulsion Technologies
Research Topics
Road Condition Monitoring & Assessments
Road Safety & Accident Research
Saliva and Blood Biomarkers
Smart Grids
Societal Futures
Structural Dynamics and Assessment
Surveillance & Protection
Sustainable Thermal Energy Systems
Telemedical Solutions
Thermophysics
Transport Optimization & Logistics

H2020-EU.3.7.3. - Strengthen security through border management            
https://cordis.europa.eu/programme/rcn/664469/en

https://cordis.europa.eu/programme/rcn/664469/en
https://cordis.europa.eu/search/en?q=contenttype%3D%27project%27%20AND%20(relatedLegalBasis%2Fprogramme%2Fcode%3D%27H2020-EU.3.7.3.%27%20OR%20relatedTopic%2Fprogramme%2Fcode%3D%27H2020-EU.3.7.3.%27)&p=1&num=10&srt=contentUpdateDate:decreasing


IBORDER CTRL
https://www.iborderctrl.eu/
iborder ctrl
'for fast and convenient border crossing'

public 

manchester metropolitan university
leibniz university

private

iTTi (poland) 
secteur spatial + stockage + biométrie et détection d'objets

everis (ntt data) 
on peut leur faire confiance il se sont fait hameçoner récemment
https://datanews.levif.be/ict/actualite/everis-belgique-touchee-par-une-attaque-de-rancongiciel-espagnole/article-news-1212053.html?cookie_check=1576851817
cie mondiale

Stremble
http://stremble.com/

EUROPEAN DYNAMICS
 e-government, software, intellectual property, law inforcement, pharma, customs, Systems for the electronic publication of legislation, 
 
 BIOSEC
 Hungarian
 biometric solutions : cashless payment, physical access control, stadium security, "rapid deployment authentication"
 rapid deployment authentication - festival security as a playground for mass crisis security cmanagement :https://www.globalsecuritymag.fr/Safe-festival-seasON,20180731,80157.html
 http://biosecgroup.com/en/solutions-and-products/bs-rapidguard-rapid-deployment-authentication
 
All in all, there is only one question left. How long should we wait until cards and bracelets become a thing of the past? 
Hopefully, not so long. Just imagine mass events without any inconveniences, where you only need your hand for access control, 
paying for drinks or opening your locker. So do not be surprised if searching for your ticket or card will be just one of those bad memories soon.


Constant acceptance testing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_testing


Back to original question:

Algorithmic discrimination assumes a system is for everyone, but it is not true.
This story is also true for these projects
Laundromat of EU money

Ask for deliverables?


the projects do not pretend to fix the world
they already start from a world in which there is already a split between bonafide and illegal

'ethics is not done by machines' so let's move on with the technology

you should not loose your time on algorithms to not discriminate
the problem is elsewhere
that is what we are seeing 

is that stratification is already in place
applying algorithmic discrimination here is to accept the stratification that is the departure point of these project
the bonafide vs. the (unnamed) but clearly not legal
those for whom borders are an imaginary to those for whom the border now starts in their (not so livable) living room
between those who understand the EU and those that do not perceive it right and mistakenly want to go to the "promised land"
arguing that algorithmic fairness could do some work here is to say that there is a way to fairly subject people to a stratification that is already unfair
the technology is contributing and  emphasizing those divisions, to produce these classes
that is why even if they don't work they do work


normalize surveillance
to uphold a stratification of society
spread moments of surveillance or borders so that they are not moments of exception

what is the work to be done?

borderless EU vs migrants

lack of transparency is not the problem? It is unclear how the projects are materialized?

software produces bias, and that is how they are supposed to work. (don't work but do work)

importance to not get paralyzed, to do a deparalyzing work


studying these projects make sense
cause we know and we don't know
and also, not to be paralyzed and to think about the different forms of resistance/agency here?


i am somehow convinced: that they keep my energy to try to figure out what on earth is going on
and in the meantime they are running with
it is noise!!

what would be the subject if it is not that?

How do you resist infrastructure
It is working: infrastructural, acceptance, ...

How to avoid paralysis
- show the work it does
- 

--
Remember: there was a call

calling back vs submit

Idea: to rewrite/write a call, and circulate it. when people will be looking for the next Horizon 2020 they will find ours and their normed expectations should be shaken, at least a little.



recall: call back the defunct projects

Horizon Europe
trouble with the horizon
orientation and all of that



# # # 15 juillet # # #

rendre des comptes = accountability

in between eastern eu / and western
what is applied to migrants is then put upon the rest of the population

Seda: we started before covid-19
covid_19 showed that this tech company are willing and more than happy to manage populations : contract tracing, mobile phone datas
they need to have access to unique identification -> civic identity is state based, citizenship it has a history; what the tech company have is not so individualised, so recognized it's just a few info on us through phones, mail, ect. Tech company really want to have these identity attributes so to have detailed info on each person they will build a parallel system based on people claims.

covid 19 showed also that even more people were forced into poverty
? in the us they decided to give 1200$ to everyone, the traditional payment method took to long so they went with digital payment that was made the most simple possible (id + address) what about homeless then? 

all of the payment systems such as bitcoin, cryptocurrency are attempts to grab shares from banks 

Canada: not keeping record on purpose of what they're doing to refugees so that there's no proof 

think about reparations: tech companies could do; give me your identity I'll track you and then I'll  give you money; like what they did for holocaust survivors. Private companies are more effecient than the state. If they have complete control on who gets what, when, it's a problem because there can easily be conflict of interest, there's no interest in being fair. Reparations is a political claim but they will turn it into an attribute and remove the political meaning of this.

the obstacles were removed because of covid-19 -> canada agreement with amazon https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-cornavirus-canada-amazon/canada-signs-agreement-with-amazon-canada-to-manage-distribution-of-medical-equipment-idUSKBN21L2MO   https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-signs-agreement-with-amazon-to-distribute-medical-equipment/



mobile provider gave stat informations without beeing asked during the lockdown -> collective surveillance is not ok -> optimisation of population management

the goal of the system is not to know exactly where and where you are individualy even if it can 


-> ads model to cloud model 
-> movings services from flesh and mortar industries to cloud service industries.
-> getting datas to produce these industries

covid situation -> something happened with bodies; injuctions on how, where to move, that we have to move not to get fat but also put your body in front of the computer. Everybody agree that we have to have a certain behaviour regarding health. Now  there's the conflicting messages, stay at home but move but when you move you can get a fine. The covid put a new layer on the body even more apparent, it's state based but it spread also through social media. The come back of the body measurement

changing the structure of the sociality, of the cognition, of the body --> mediation, affection (how it affects us) and so on 

states used the covid situation as an excuse to closed the border in a way that hadnt been done in many years



reinstation of physical border control
covid-19 was also an opportunity for tech companies to shrink and stick to the conservative agenda of closed nation state
computational infrastructure that would overpower the nation state, they need the coupling of the nation state (detailed info of the state on the population) with their technology
nation states have surrendered to Apple and Covid

another example : vidis in Belgium https://www.inami.fgov.be/fr/themes/qualite-soins/e-sante/Pages/projet-vidis.aspx



# NEXT ?
Peg 
Seda  
Elodie 

Next meeting : OCTOBER