When we buy something on Amazon or watch something on Netflix, we think it’s our own choice. It turns out that algorithms influence one-third of our decisions on Amazon and more than 80 percent on Netflix. What’s more, algorithms have their own biases. They can even go rogue.
In his recent book, “A Human’s Guide to Machine Intelligence: How Algorithms Are Shaping Our Lives and How We Can Stay in Control,” Kartik Hosanagar, a professor of operations, information and decisions at Wharton, focuses on these issues and more. He discusses how algorithmic decisions can go wrong and how we can control the way technology impacts decisions that are made for us or about us.
Hosanagar notes that a solution to this complex problem is that we must “engage more actively and more deliberately and be part of the process of influencing how these technologies develop.”
Materials in the Annenberg School for Communication Library Archives include thousands of TV scripts, the first issue of TV Guide, and interviews about the early days of HBO—which help to chronicle TV’s 100-year story.
Centering joy in AI development and implementation
PIK Professor Desmond Upton Patton—of Annenberg and SP2—and collaborators introduce a joy-informed framework designed to initiate conversations among engineers, designers, and researchers.
Winter Storm Fern brought icy and snowy conditions to the Northeast and other parts of the country over the weekend. Penn Today asks physicist Robert Carpick about the unique properties of ice, the science of curling, and how close we are to ‘nonslip’ ice.
Organizations like Penn’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships foster collaborations between Penn and public schools in the West Philadelphia community.
Penn receives national distinction for community engagement
The recognition by the American Council on Education and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching acknowledges Penn’s long-standing commitment to community-engaged scholarship and partnerships in West Philadelphia and beyond.
