Digital Platforms As Privatized Epistemic Infrastructures
and Profit: DigitalPlatforms asMARCH 2019See, Nudge, ControlPrivatized EpistemicInfrastructuresPlatform Politick:A SeriesIT FOR CHANGELAURA MANNGIANLUCA IAZZOLINO
This report was produced as part of the research project ‘Policyframeworks for digital platforms - Moving from openness to inclusion’.The project seeks to explore and articulate institutional-legalarrangements that are adequate to a future economy that best servesthe ideas of development justice. This initiative is led by IT for Change,India, and supported by the International Development Research Centre(IDRC), Canada.AuthorsLaura Mann is Assistant Professor in International Development at theLondon School of Economics and Political Science.Gianluca Iazzolino is a Research Fellow at the Firoz Lalji Centre forAfrica, London School of Economics and Political Science.Research coordination teamPrincipal Investigator: Anita GurumurthyCo-investigators: Deepti Bharthur, Nandini ChamiEditorial Support: Mridula Swamy, Amruta LakheDesign: Meenakshi Yadav, Prakriti Bakshi IT for Change 2019Licensed under a Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4)
See, Nudge, Control and Profit:Digital Platforms as Privatized EpistemicInfrastructuresLaura Mann and Gianluca IazzolinoLondon School of Economics and Political ScienceIT for Change 2019
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See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresIT for Change 20191. IntroductionICTs are seen as theirliberation technologies,'leveling the playingfield,' removingtransaction costs and'flattening the globaleconomyNIE is too reductive anapproach forunderstanding the likelyimpacts of digitaltechnologies on theglobal economy and onthe developmentalchallenge facing poorand emergingeconomies1
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresBy privatized epistemicinfrastructure, we meanprivately-heldinfrastructures forlearning. In contextswhere digital platformsare built by foreigntechnology firms, theseplatforms couldpotentially lock in thecompetitivetechnologicaladvantage of richcountries and increasethe technologicaldependence of poorcountries, weakeningtheir capacity to learn,innovate and move intocompetitive positionswithin the globalknowledge economy infuture2IT for Change 2019
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic Infrastructures2. Knowledge, Development and theRole of Digital Platforms2.1 Knowledge and Economic DevelopmentIT for Change 2019In order to understandthe likely impacts ofinformation andcommunicationtechnology on theglobal economy, wemust understand thecompetitive nature ofknowledge productionsystems within theglobal economyEconomic competitionbetween nations ispartly about skill-levelsand training, and howwell-equipped eachpopulation is in usinginput technologyeffectively3
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresInnovation means thatsome firms and nationalworkforces are notcompeting with otherfirms and workforces oncost or quality alone'Knowledge premiums'protect advancedeconomies from thedownward pressure onwages and profitspresented by globalcompetition4IT for Change 2019
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresIT for Change 2019While we tend toseparate 'developingeconomies' from'developed economies'in discussions ofeconomic development,all economies aredeveloping economiesseeking to maintain theirtechnological prowess.Development is acompetitive and globalundertakingAgriculture can be ahigh-tech sectorprovided farm groupsinvest in research anddevelop new markets forinnovative goods andservices5
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresBroad-based learningwill make the‘knowledge premium’earned at the globallevel more evenlydistributed within asociety, further boostingdemand, savings, andgrowthWhen the profits oftechnology are notshared widely, thewhole economy starvesof resources6IT for Change 2019
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresIT for Change 2019Our knowledge systemswield infrastructuralpower to change theworld in material ways2.2 Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresWe must analyzeplatformization anddigitization, not simplyas efficiency generatingtechnologies, butthrough the lens ofcompetitive knowledgeproduction, analyzingdigital platformsultimately as privatizedepistemicinfrastructures7
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresOne can think of thisgreat ‘disintermediation’as a process by whichthe platform improvesoverall efficiency of themarket through theelimination of disparatepockets of capitalaccumulation and/orskillRather than invest inpublic transport andpublic healthprofessionals, suchorganizationsencourage privatefirms to develop ‘frugalinnovations’ thatobviate the need forgovernmentinvolvement nordistributed skill andpublic investment8IT for Change 2019
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresIT for Change 2019In the coming years, wemay come to tease outinteresting patterns of‘Varieties of DigitalEconomies’ in much thesame way that scholarshave identified ‘Varietiesof Capitalism’Platforms don't justtransfer skills; they alsotransfer marketknowledge and the rawmaterial for innovation9
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresPlatform operators use adiscourse of 'openness'to their advantage byallowing independentservice providers topiggy-back on theirnetwork and therebyincrease the value oftheir proprietaryinfrastructure10IT for Change 2019
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresIT for Change 2019Public-privatepartnerships canbecome particularlyunbalanced if there arelarge technologicalcapability gapsbetween parties11
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresWhere agriculturalplatforms are filling avacuum left byextension services, theybecome the onlyreferents for farmers,pushing publicPolicymakers mighttherefore think abouthow they can build updomestic knowledgecapabilities as asupplement to thecommercially-ownedplatforms becomingpervasive12IT for Change 2019
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresIT for Change 2019The role of regulators istherefore critical toensure that the worsttendencies of platformsare kept in checkThe difficult task ofregulating platforms isfurther compounded bya dearth of skill in thepublic sector, reflectedin the low numbers ofdata scientists workingfor regulatory bodies3. Conclusion13
See, Nudge, Control and Profit: Digital Platforms as Privatized Epistemic InfrastructuresCompetition in the digitaleconomy will partly befought over whichsocieties are able -through whichevermeans they deemadequate -- to re-investdigital efficiency gainsback into sharedlearning, technologicaldevelopment, andproductive infrastructure.Whether or not society isable to do so will dependon the developmentalorientation of the public14IT for Change 2019
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Parametric Epistemic Uncertainty Epistemic uncertainty: Uncertainty due to lack of knowledge Parametric form and model-form Reducible Probabilistic approaches require the distribution function of Z F Z (s) Prob(Z s),s2 Rnz requires a large amount of information/data, and
cepted;5 thus, Chicago Midway Airport is well on its way to becoming the first major privatized airport in the United States. The goal of this Comment is to first develop the history be-hind both the American and global experiences with privatized airports, to give the current progress of the Midway application
Working on digital labour platforms 7 Over the past decade, labour platforms - digital platforms that connect workers with work - have emerged as a new trend in the world of work. Connecting predominately self-employed workers with clients in need of services on an on-demand basis, platforms have proved capable of transforming how, when
DIGITAL LABOUR PLATFORMS IN THE EU 6 Abstract This is the final report of the study on 'Digital labour platforms in the EU: Mapping and business models' for the Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL). In total, 516 active and another 74 inactive digital labour platforms (DLPs) in the EU27 have been .
Digital manufacturing platforms Digital manufacturing platforms are essential to maximise operational efficiency, by enabling clients to fast-track their entire smart factory transformation process for a . labour, equipment performance and production efficiency. Lastly, digital manufacturing platforms integrate to management/enterprise .
don’t know it, ’. These facts pose a prima facie problem for an orthodox treatment of epistemic modals as expressing propositions about the knowledge of some contextually specified individual or group. This paper develops an explanation of the puzzling facts about embedding within an orthodox framework. 1. Yalcin’s data
“The Epistemic Ideal of Reason-Giving in Deliberative Democracy.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 10 (2017): 59-64. “Balancing Epistemic Quality and Equal Participation in a Systems Approach to Deliberative Democracy.” Social Epistemology 31(2017) 3: 266-276.
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