Dunsky Insight

Business social impact comes from good intentions. Nevertheless, it will end up eroding trust in capitalism and driving us further apart.

Impact Statement | Literary Review of Canada Does corporate social responsibility lead to real action and change?

Here's a review I just wrote for Stephanie Carvin's book "Stand on Guard: Reassessing Threats to Canada's National Security"

Book Review: Stand on Guard - Open Canada Stephanie Carvin. Stand on Guard: Reassessing Threats to Canada’s National Security. University of Toronto Press, 2021

Facebook and democracy

Socially Distant | Literary Review of Canada In the era of fake news and social media, Dan Dunsky explores the value of truth in the face of Facebook.

More on the important question of who is creating the future:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2016/10/20/women-in-computing-to-decline-22-percent-by-2025-study-warns/92438566/

Women in computing to decline to 22% by 2025, study warns

I'll be on a panel at A2J week later this month. Check it out.

https://theactiongroup.ca/access-to-justice-week/

Access to Justice Week | The Action Group on Access to Justice This week will include a range of engagement and learning opportunities for the public, legal professionals, community workers, students and other access to justice advocates.

A lot of talk about futurists and forecasters since Alvin Toffler's death. If you want to know what questions about the future are somewhat reasonable to ask, you should be following the work of Philip Tetlock.

http://app.ft.com/cms/s/803a430a-442b-11e6-b22f-79eb4891c97d.html

Lunch with the FT: Philip Tetlock - FT.com As the UK’s referendum on Europe sent waves of embarrassment washing over the global punditocracy that had overwhelmingly called it the wrong way, I found myself thinking of Philip Tetlock. He, after all, enjoys the paradoxical distinction of being

The CBC's Laura Wright interviewed me and several others for a piece on the future of news marking the 20th anniversary of the CBC's website. http://bit.ly/29fB2u2

I hope I don't come across as overly negative. I'm actually quite optimistic about the (eventual) future of digital information and communication technologies. Yes, it's a very messy information landscape out there right now -- as we live through the breakdown of the status quo most of us grew up with and can't see a new one emerging yet -- and that is a real challenge.

But, being a good liberal democrat, I see the democratization of information as a good thing. The truth is, there's never been a better time to be a journalist. It's also true that there's never been a worse time to make money being a journalist, but those are two different things.

'One of these hinge moments': Newsrooms grapple with Facebook, Google's hold on industry CBCNews.ca has been running for 20 years now. It's come a long way from what it was in 1996, but the news industry has undergone even more monumental change in these years. Some media thinkers weigh in on what the future might hold for the industry.

For a few years now, I've been interested in the question of who is determining (writing code for) our future. When I was still at The Agenda we did a show (or two) on the subject. This piece http://nyti.ms/2918TpG is about who is coding AI programs, and this site http://bit.ly/NTZMbo keeps tabs on the number of female engineers working at leading digital firms.

Artificial Intelligence’s White Guy Problem Our world is increasingly shaped by biased algorithms that have been built with little oversight.

Brexit was a direct result of the view that the costs of globalization -- the ever-freer flow of goods, services, capital, ideas, and people (especially people) -- now outweigh the benefits. What will be the impact of this view on Canadians, who have, over the past quarter century, become ardent supporters of globalization?

From the staggering stats department:

"In the US, 85 cents of every new dollar spent on digital (advertising) went to the two companies (Facebook and Google) in the first quarter of 2016."

https://next.ft.com/content/6c6b74a4-3920-11e6-9a05-82a9b15a8ee7

Advertising: Do Facebook and Google have too much muscle? Digital is set to eclipse TV as the main source of spending but online power is a concern