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Pretrial risk assessment tools found to be subjective and biased

May 4, 2023 Read the full brief
In their attempts to reform the cash bail system, jurisdictions across the country are turning to automated pretrial risk assessment tools that ‘predict’ if a defendant will be arrested for a new crime while waiting for trial or will fail to appear...
Pretrial risk assessment tools found to be subjective and biased
News

STPP receives grant to study STEM-in-Society training

Apr 21, 2023
As science becomes more central to our daily lives—whether for predicting the impacts of climate change, transforming our physical and cognitive capabilities, or developing life-saving pharmaceuticals—socially responsible research and innovation are...
STPP receives grant to study STEM-in-Society training
News

STPP gift to expand educational opportunities for undergraduates

Mar 22, 2023
The Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program has received a $250,000 gift to expand educational opportunities for undergraduates across campus. The gift comes from Phil (LSA ’87) and Julie (LSA ’88) Hollyer, parents of Keegan (Ford BA...
STPP grant to expand educational opportunities for undergraduates
Publication

Ethical implications of defense funding in social science

Mar 22, 2023
Since World War I, defense funding has been a driver of social science’s growth. The dense ties between social science and defense agencies benefitted social research but also attracted decades of heavy criticism. This long and entangled history has...
Ethical implications of defense funding in social science
In the Media

AI will 'turbocharge' inequalities in health care - Parthasarathy

Mar 16, 2023 Bridge Michigan
Shobita Parthasarathy, Bridge Michigan: "Health care systems don't even know what data they're missing. That (AI) gets integrated into medical care as a mechanism for achieving efficiency. But they do that without realizing that it's going to...
ChatGPT: Ford School expert can discuss AI chatbots, their reach, impact, concerns, potential
In the Media

Parthasarathy on AI technology perils

Feb 28, 2023 Business Insider
Business Insider: Run-ins with users show some of the potentially troubling outcomes to expect when companies experiment with the public on new AI technologies, said Shobita Parthasarathy, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, who...
Parthasarathy on AI technology perils
Publication

Automated License Plate Readers widely used, subject to abuse

Feb 22, 2023
Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are being used by a growing number of public and private entities to track drivers’ movements and location. The use of the technology is almost entirely unregulated and can be subject to abuse, so some...
Automated License Plate Readers widely used, subject to abuse
In the Media

Parthasarathy weighs in on implications of ChatGPT

Feb 6, 2023 Nature
Shobita Parthasarathy, Nature: "Besides directly producing toxic content, there are concerns that AI chatbots will embed historical biases or ideas about the world from their training data, such as the superiority of particular cultures, says...
Parthasarathy weighs in on implications of ChatGPT
News

Announcing winter 2023 Ford School events

Jan 11, 2023
 The Ford School is pleased to announce an exciting lineup for the winter 2023 Policy Talks @ the Ford School series and other special public events hosted with partners from across campus. Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise...
Announcing winter 2023 Ford School events
News

Green discusses the fairness of algorithms at Harvard University

Jan 10, 2023
Postdoctoral scholar Ben Green recently joined Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society for a webinar focused on what fairness means in the context of algorithms and how fairness can be measured. Joined by other scholars...
Using algorithms in government: Opportunities, challenges, and paths forward
News

Ford School STPP scholars receive inaugural Quad Fellowships

Jan 3, 2023
Two graduate certificate students in the Ford School’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy (STPP) program have been selected for the inaugural cohort of the Quad Fellowship, a program designed to spur interdisciplinary scientific and...
Science, Technology, and Public Policy graduate certificate information session
News

Harvard STS Summer School Takeaways

Dec 21, 2022
By Margarita Maria Rodriguez Morales, Ph.D. candidate in Public Policy & Sociology and STPP certificate student The Summer School was jointly hosted with the Institute for Global Law and Policy of the Harvard Law School. Last summer, I had the...
Margarita Maria Rodriguez Morales
News

Ford School faculty launch open online courses

Dec 19, 2022
Three Ford School faculty have developed exciting new online courses to equip learners and professionals around the globe with interdisciplinary skills that help them engage in and inform complex public policy decision-making processes. Elisabeth...
Ford School faculty launch open online courses
State & Hill

Diversity, equity, and inclusion highlights

Dec 19, 2022
The University of Michigan is currently in an interim period between its strategic plans for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), with the next plan set to launch in early fall 2023. The Ford School community did not pause, however, and is hard...
Diversity, equity, and inclusion highlights
News

Parthasarathy discusses implications of Large Language Models

Nov 7, 2022
Large Language Models (LLMs) are artificial intelligence tools that can read, summarize and translate texts and predict future words in a sentence letting them generate sentences similar to how humans talk and write. Shobita Parthasarathy, professor...
Parthasarathy discusses implications of Large Language Models
News

Ford School faculty contribute to Anti-Racism Hiring Initiative

Oct 31, 2022
Three Ford School faculty members have played an integral role in U-M's Anti-Racism Hiring Initiative, providing expertise and guidance to the initiative. The Anti-Racism Hiring Initiative is led by the Office of the Provost and aims to bring 21...
Ford School faculty contribute to Anti-Racism Hiring Initiative
News

STPP Students Win 2nd Place in Policy Writing Competition

Oct 26, 2022
STPP students Natasha Dacic, Christina Del Greco, Natalia Harris, Kelsey Kochan, and Elena Levi-D’Ancona recently penned a policy brief about abortion rights in the United States for the National Science Policy Network's 2022 policy writing...
NSPN Policy Writing Award
Publication

Green discusses "substantive algorithmic fairness"

Oct 19, 2022
Ford School assistant professor Ben Green, and an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, says that if algorithms are to improve society, focusing only on whether they’re mathematically “fair” won’t get us...
Using algorithms in government: Opportunities, challenges, and paths forward