Mary W. Graham
Author and Researcher
THE INFORMED PUBLIC
Big, Bold Warning Labels Can Steer People Away From Junk Food
This article summarizes an important debate about adding simple front-of-package alerts noting added sugar, salt, or saturated fat to existing complex nutritional labels.
Maybe We Will Finally Learn More About How A.I. Works
Kevin Roose of the New York Times reports on a new project at Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence to rank large AI systems for their degree of transparency on a 100-point scale. Google, Meta, Amazon, and OpenAI models are all in the mix. Aims are ambitious - improve applications, policies, research, and consumer protection.
More information can be a good place to start. But a cautionary note: building a disclosure system that is trusted and actually improves public safety is a long and arduous process, and many attempts fail, as we at the Transparency Policy Project have learned. It makes sense to start small, evaluate the effectiveness of each step against the goals, and prepare for a long fight against efforts to game the system. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/18/technology/how-ai-works-stanford.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Will California’s new disclosure law reduce carbon emissions enough to be worth the business cost?
A good test case. Will California’s new disclosure law reduce carbon emissions enough to be worth the cost to businesses?
California Gov. Gavin Newsom signs law requiring big businesses to disclose emissions
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Large businesses in California will have to disclose a wide range of planet-warming emissions under...
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Disclosure Dilemmas: AI Transparency is No Quick Fix
In her essay Disclosure Dilemmas: AI Transparency is no Quick Fix https://ash.harvard.edu/disclosure-dilemmas-ai-transparency-no-quick-fix, Mary Graham argues that transparency measures can help curtail AI-related risks but not overnight - transparency efforts require sustained, long-term engagement and effort.
Building the infrastructure for reporting carbon emissions.
A Job With a Fair Salary? What Pay Transparency Laws Are Revealing.
A quarter of the U.S. workforce is now covered by state and local salary transparency laws aimed at reducing gender and racial pay inequities.
The best proposal so far for regulating AI - start with effective disclosure.
How AI could take over elections – and undermine democracy
Could organizations use artificial intelligence language models such as ChatGPT to induce voters to behave in specific ways?
Sen. Josh Hawley asked OpenAI CEO Sam Altman this question in a May 16, 2023, U.S. Senate hearing on artificial intelligence. Altman replied that he was indeed concerned that some people might use language models to manipulate, persuade and engage in one-on-one interactions with voters.
To be effective, disclosure systems must improve over time.
Here’s a good example of one that is improving in response to shareholder interests.
The GAO recommends standardized reporting of college financial aid packages.
Best account so far of why recycling transparency doesn’t work.
Trash or Recycling? Why Plastic Keeps Us Guessing.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/21/climate/plastics-recycling-trash-environment.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Good example of creating new transparency system from scattered public data.
How to determine if a business is COVID-19 safe? Create a restaurant-style grading system.
In early 2020, as the risks of exposure to the COVID virus were becoming clear, restaurants and other businesses responded in varied ways that gave more or less protection to customers and employees. But protection measures often remained hidden. We suggested in a 6/9/20 Los Angeles Times article that the government should quickly create a simple rating system to inform the public about which businesses offered excellent protection.