academics-from-canada

"His tact and firmness and his Catholic faith were of immense service to all in solving many complicated questions of these early days. He was devoted to his Church, and was very charitable but unostentatiously so. He helped many deserving students to a Catholic education."

"It is worth taking a moment to drill down with real life examples. IBM Watson is used by H&R Block to make expert decisions about people’s tax returns. At the same time, governments are using AI to determine who is cheating on their taxes. Big Law uses ROSS to help its clients avoid legal risk. Meanwhile, law enforcement agencies use similar applications to decide which individuals will commit crimes and which prisoners will reoffend. Banks use AI to decide who will default on a loan, universities to decide which students should be admitted, employers to decide who gets the job, and so on."

"First, as I appear before you today, I think it is fair to say that my sense of déjà vu is not unwarranted. With the exception of a few new points (such as my submission in favour of a new duty to explain), much of what I have said, indeed much of what everyone who has appeared before you has said, has all been said before. Although many of the honourable members of this Committee are new to these issues, those who have done their homework will surely know that we have already done this dance in hearings on Bill S-4, Bill C-13, the Privacy Act, the hearings on Privacy and Social Media and, of course, the PIPEDA Review of 2006. And yet we have seen very little in the way of substantive legislative change. Although ongoing study is important, I say, with respect, that you are not Zamboni drivers. The time has come to stop circling round the same old ice. It is time now for you to make some much needed changes to the law."

"I don’t think it’s a battle that is decisively won and we don’t have to worry about it again, but I think there are enough resources and assets being thrown against this problem that I would like to think it will be a match for the worst and most egregious form of information warfare"

"However, technological developments in the 17 years since PIPEDA go well beyond watching. Today, I will focus on a single example: the use of AI to perform risk assessment and delegated decision-making. The substitution of machines for humans shifts the metaphor away from the watchful eye of Big Brother, towards what Professor Daniel Solove has characterized as “a more thoughtless process of bureaucratic indifference, arbitrary errors, and dehumanization, a world where people feel powerless and vulnerable, without any meaningful form of participation in the collection and use of their information.” This isn't George Orwell’s 1984—its Franz Kafka’s Trial of Joseph K. Since the enactment of PIPEDA, the world we now occupy permits complex, inscrutable AI to make significant decisions that affect our life chances and opportunities. These decisions are often processed with little to no input from the people they affect, and little to no explanation as to how or why these decisions were made. Such decisions may be “unnerving, unfair, unsafe, unpredictable, unaccountable”—and unconstitutional. They interfere with fundamental rights, including the right to due process and even the presumption of innocence."

"First, to put it colloquially, the call for stronger enforcement through order making powers, the ability of the OPC to impose meaningful penalties, including fines, is by now a total no-brainer. As Michael Vonn of the BCCLA recently testified before you, “there is no longer any credible argument for retaining the so-called ombudsperson model.” This has already been acknowledged by Commissioner Therrien, and former Commissioners Stoddart and Bernier, fortified by testimony from Canadian jurisdictions that already have order making power, which Commissioners Clayton and McArthur have described as advantageous. Strong investigatory and order making powers are a necessary component of effective privacy enforcement, especially in a global environment. Lets get it done."

"This “emergent behavior” is what makes these AIs so useful. It also makes these AIs inscrutable. Machine learning, Knowledge Discovery in Databases, and other AI techniques produce decision-making models differing so radically from the way humans make decisions that they resist our ability to make sense of them. Ironically, AIs display great accuracy—but those who use them (even their programmers) often don’t know exactly how or why."

"Permitting such decisions without an ability to understand them can have the effect of eliminating challenges that are essential to the rule of law. When an institution uses your own personal information and data about you to decide that you don’t get a loan, or that your neighborhood will undergo more police surveillance, or that you don’t get to go to university, you don’t get the job, or you don’t get out of jail, and those decisions cannot be explained by anyone in any meaningful way, such uses of your data interfere with your privacy rights."

"Second, as I prepare for question period, I look around the table and all I see is men. Inexplicably, your Committee itself is composed entirely of men. Yes, I realize that you have called upon a number of women to testify during the course of these proceedings. This, of course, makes sense. After all, a significant majority of privacy professionals are women. Indeed, I think it is fair to say that global thought-leadership in the field of privacy is, by majority, the result of contributions made by women. So I find it astonishing and unjustifiable that you have no women on your Committee, a decision as incomprehensible as any made by an algorithm. And so, I feel compelled to close my remarks by making this observation a part of the public record."

"Mama raised me right. Among other things, she taught me that you don’t accept a dinner invitation and then complain to your hosts about what is being served. Mama’s gentle wisdom notwithstanding, I would like to conclude my remarks today by making two uncomfortable observations."

"But here is the rub. These AIs are designed in ways that raise unique challenges for privacy. Many use machine learning to excel at decision-making; this means AIs can go beyond their original programming, to make “discoveries” in the data that human decision-makers would neither see nor understand."

"Finally, I also agree with those who recognize the need for meaningful consent. In particular, I agree with the four-point proposal put forward by Professor Michael Geist. I have a further proposal outside of my main submission, which I would like very much to share with you. I am hoping that one of you will jot this down and ask me about it during the question period."

"When PIPEDA was enacted, the dominant privacy metaphor was George Orwell’s 1984—“Big Brother is Watching you.” Strong privacy rights were seen as an antidote to the new possibility of dataveillance—the application of information technologies by government or industry to watch, track and monitor individuals by investigating the data trail they leave through their activities. Though perhaps no panacea, PIPEDA’s technology neutral attempt to limit collection, use and disclosure was thought to be a sufficient corrective."

"Having reinforced these views, the majority of my remarks will focus on two of the central themes raised by this study: transparency and meaningful consent. I will use this framing language to orient your thinking but, in truth, both of these concepts require expansion in light of dizzying technological progress."

"I think that this is the sort of reason a number of experts have told you that we need greater transparency or, as some have put it: “algorithmic transparency.” But it is my respectful submission that transparency does not go far enough. It is not enough for companies or governments to disclose what information has been collected or used. When AI-decisions affect our life chances and opportunities, those who use the AIs have a duty to explain those decisions in a way that allows us to challenge the decision-making process itself. This is a basic privacy principle enshrined in data protection law worldwide."

"I would therefore submit that PIPEDA requires a duty to explain decision-making by machines. A duty to explain addresses “transparency” and “meaningful consent” concerns but goes further in order to ensure fundamental rights to due process and the presumption of innocence. Arguably, such a duty is enshrined in the forthcoming EU GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation). Even if it is not, Canada should lead by enacting such a duty. I would go even further, following EU GDPR Article 22, and suggest that PIPEDA should also to enshrine “a right not to be subject to a decision that is based solely on automated processing.” PIPEDA was enacted to protect human beings from technological encroachment. Decision-making about people must therefore maintain meaningful human control. PIPEDA should prohibit fully automated decision-making that does not permit human understanding or intervention. And, to be clear, I make these submissions not to ensure EU “adequacy.” I make these submissions because they are necessary to protect privacy and human rights."

"Second, I agree with Commissioner Stoddart and with overlapping testimony by Professor Valerie Steeves, both of whom have stated that PIPEDA’s language needs to be strengthened in a way that reasserts its orientation towards human rights. As Professor Steeves attests, privacy rights are not reducible to data protection, which itself is not reducible to a balancing of interests. Enshrining privacy as a human right, as PIPEDA does, reflects a profound and crucial set of underlying democratic values and commitments. Privacy rights are not merely a tradeoff for business or governmental convenience. PIPEDA needs stronger human rights language."

"I think the reason there’s been a decline in elite or expertise has been more of a populist movement. A good amount of the people feels they have been left behind by the world order. I think that would be much more important than technology"

"When we worked on this paper, Shay Moran was just finishing his PhD. I met Shay and his supervisor, Amir Yehudayoff, at a workshop. We found that our expertise and interests matched so we collaborated to obtain this surprising interdisciplinary result."

"People are now looking at concrete problems in mathematics and asking maybe some problems in mathematics that we don’t know how to answer fall into this category of questions that cannot be answered"

"Our results are the first-ever demonstration of a problem in concrete statistical machine learning that cannot be answered,” Professor Ben-David said. “As a corollary, we also proved that there cannot be any dimension that characterizes how hard it is to learn a general statistical problem, which is a big surprise to this community."

"' I always enjoy a good story, and the history of the blue false indigo, ', makes for good reading. This blue-flowered species was the first plant to be subsidized by the English government in the 1700s, the farmers in the colonies of Georgia and South Carolina grew it as a row crop for the British Empire to supplement true indigo ('). It was a good substitute, but not of the quality of true indigo, and thus came to be known as false indigo, or wild indigo. The false indigos come in three main colors—blue, white, and yellow—but new hybrids and selections are bringing this fine plant into mainstream gardening."

"' has a number of common names, one of which is monkshood, so called because of the enlarged that resembles a hood, under which the rest of the floral parts are hidden. Roots were used as poison bait for wolves, thus accounting for another popular name, wolfsbane. All aconitums have poisonous roots, leaves, and stems and warnings concerning their poisonous properties have been sounded since the late 1500s."

"The new program at the (UGA) consists of plant evaluation and new crop introduction. The definition of “new crop” used in the program is taxa that are new to the floriculture/landscape industry. New introductions are first evaluated in the for ease of propagation and placed in the trial gardens the subsequent spring. In the past, commercial growers were allowed to gather cuttings of new material and sell them under the names given to the new plant. The market determined the success or failure of the plant. Examples of successful plants which resulted from this “Open Grower” concept included ' ‘Homestead Purple’, ' ‘Margarita’, and new selections of ' ('). No charge for cuttings was applied and no funding returned to the department. However, an excellent working relationship between the department and industry developed."

"Kent’s critics have long accused him of using anti-cultism as a tool to promote a broader hostility toward religion, and [his book Psychobiographies and Godly Visions: Disordered Minds and the Origins of Religiosity] reads like a spectacular confirmation. All religious leaders are painted with the same brush: deluded, dangerous, and diagnostically compromised. This worldview is so totalizing that it leaves no room for metaphor, [or for] mystery, or [for] the possibility that [the] spiritual experience might be more than just neurological noise."

"… [In his recent work, Kent] portrays several religions as breeding grounds for mental illness and abuse rather than multifaceted human phenomena. … To be clear, Kent is not a hoaxer like [French provocateur Léo] Taxil. He is a credentialed academic. But like Taxil, he operates in a space where ideology can overshadow evidence, and where the allure of uncovering hidden evil can distort the lens of inquiry. … Kent’s journey from sociologist to activist is a story worth telling, not because it is unique, but because it is emblematic of a broader tension between scholarship and sensationalism. After all, when the devil is in the details, the scholar must be doubly vigilant."

"[Religiologist David] Frankfurter’s central objection is that Kent conflates mythic narratives with historical reality. … Kent’s theory of “deviant scripturalism” posits that fringe groups can use or misuse specific religious texts—particularly those involving incest, sacrifice, or divine violence—to justify abuse. But Frankfurter argues that this approach lacks historical grounding. Kent’s method, he counters, amounts to a kind of speculative anthropology, in which the mere presence of a mythic in scripture is taken as evidence of its enactment in ritual. This is not just a methodological quibble. It strikes at the heart of Kent’s argument. By treating scriptural motifs as behavioral templates, Kent blurs the line between text and practice, belief and action. Frankfurter points out that such motifs are ubiquitous in religious literature, yet rarely—if ever—translated into ritual abuse. Historical data do not support the leap from narrative to crime."

"Kent’s problem is not that he critiques religion. The problem is how he does it. He constructs a sensational and simplistic narrative by privileging anecdote over evidence and ideology over nuance. He treats religious belief as pathology, ritual as camouflage, and dissent as proof. This is not sociology—it is polemic. And it has consequences. Kent’s theories have been used to justify surveillance of religious groups, to support prosecutions based on dubious evidence, and to stigmatize communities that deviate from [the] mainstream norms. His work has contributed to a climate of suspicion, where difference is equated with danger and belief with abuse. This is why revisiting the Satanism scare—and Kent’s role in it—is not merely an academic exercise. We must remember how easily fear can masquerade as scholarship, and how quickly ideology can distort inquiry. We must distinguish between critique and condemnation, between analysis and accusation."

"But people refused to abandon festivities linked inextricably to the agrarian cycle and north Indian culture.° To renounce Holi celebrations, for instance, would have implied giving up a period of carnival, a time when indigenous society tolerated role reversal and the inversion of rigid social norms. Of all the groups within civil society, the non-elites were most unwilling to forgo this festival; it was the time of year when they took centre-stage without fear of reprisal. If the definitions of Sikh communal life had been left to the Tat Khalsa, the community today would have been without either the Holi or the Diwali festivities."

"A most spectacular sign of the success of popular opposition to Tat Khalsa hegemony comes from the domain of festive cycles. As stated previously, there had been a persistent campaign against Sikh participation in festivals like Holi and Diwali."

"Long after the monsoons cease in the plains of northern India and half the lunar year is over, there comes the widely-celebrated festival of Diwali, held on the day of the new moon in the month of Kattak. The raison d’étre of this festival of lights is so well known that it needs no explication.*” What may be recounted is how the festival crystallized into ‘the greatest festival of the Sikhs’.88 According to Sikh tradition the sixth guru, Hargobind Singh, on his release from Gwalior fort by the Mughal authorities, arrived in the city of Amritsar accompanied by fifty-two chieftains. The residents of the city were greatly elated and since then have celebrated the day of the festival with jubilation."

"Finally, a sustained campaign was launched to prevent Sikhs from taking part in festivals like Holi and Diwali. These were deemed un-Sikh festivities and an effort was made to replace them with innovations that would commemorate key events from the Sikh past. Babu Teja Singh made the most systematic proposals along these lines."

"Not only does the United States claim that their democratic model is best for them, but [also] that it is best for the rest of the world. Some Americans assume that alternative systems are fundamentally illegitimate. Naturally this attitude upsets many Chinese who are committed to good government. They think, who are you to lecture us about political systems, with only a few hundred years of history?"

"The traditional view, that iron was brought into the subcontinent by invading 'Aryans' (Banerjee 1965), is wrong on two counts: there is no evidence of any knowledge of iron in the earliest Vedic texts (Pleiner 1971), where ayas stands either for copper or for metals in general, and the idea that the aryas of the Rigveda were invaders has become just as questionable. Wheeler's assertion that iron only spread to India with the eastward extension of Achaemenid rule (Wheeler 1962) is even more untenable in the face of radiocarbon dates from early iron-bearing levels."

"Indeed, if one accepts that the migrations of Indo-Aryan speakers into South Asia already entered the realm of mythology at the time of the Rgvedic hymns, and that the latter were composed from ca. the 15th century B.C. onwards, the chronology suggested by the archaeological evidence already makes perfect sense."

"The alternative thesis (Chakrabarti 1977), that iron smelting was developed in the subcontinent, rests on two principal arguments. First, iron ore is found across the length and the breadth of India, outside alluvial plains, in quantities that were certainly viable for exploitation by the primitive methods observable even in this century (Ball 1881; Elwin 1942). Ample opportunities thus existed for experimentation, although given the complexity or iron smelting this is not a conclusive point. The second argument, that the earliest evidence for iron comes from the peninsula and not from the northwest, is much more persuasive, even if better examples than quoted by Chakrabarti can be adduced in support of it. Briefly, while the dating of Phase II of Nagda (the earliest iron bearing level) depends on ceramic analogies, and the stratigraphy of Ahar (another site which is claimed to have produced evidence for iron) is hopelessly muddled, the testimony of radiocarbon dates is instructive."

"[the perspective offered by archaeology], "that of material culture […] is in direct conflict with the findings of the other discipline claiming a key to the solution of the ‘Aryan Problem’, linguistics" ...Archaeologists and anthropologists... [like] Jim G. Shaffer and Diane A. Lichtenstein, who “stress the indigenous development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onwards, and downplay the role of language in the formation of (pre-modern) ethnic identities”; J. Mark Kenoyer, who “stresses that the cultural history of South Asia in the 2nd millinnium B.C. may be explained without reference to external agents”, and Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, who concludes “that while discontinuities in physical types have certainly been found in South Asia, they are dated to the 5th/4th, and to the 1st millennium BC, respectively, too early and too late to have any connection with ‘Aryans’.”"

"George Erdosy, a Canadian scholar, is refreshingly perceptive: Even apparently clear indications of historical struggles between dark aborigines and Arya conquerors turn out to be misleading…. [The Dasas and Dasyus] appear to be demonic rather than human enemies…. It is a cosmic Struggle which is described in detailed accounts that are consistent with one another."

"[the idea of an Aryan invasion of India in the second millennium BCE] has recently been challenged by archaeologists, who ― along with linguists ― are best qualified to evaluate its validity. Lack of convincing material (or osteological) traces left behind by the incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, the possibility of explaining cultural change without reference to external factors and ― above all ― an altered world-view (Shaffer 1984) have all contributed to a questioning of assumptions long taken for granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two centuries of scholarship.... [the perspective offered by archaeology], "that of material culture […] is in direct conflict with the findings of the other discipline claiming a key to the solution of the ‘Aryan Problem’, linguistics" ...Archaeologists and anthropologists... [like] Jim G. Shaffer and Diane A. Lichtenstein, who “stress the indigenous development of South Asian civilization from the Neolithic onwards, and downplay the role of language in the formation of (pre-modern) ethnic identities”; J. Mark Kenoyer, who “stresses that the cultural history of South Asia in the 2nd millinnium B.C. may be explained without reference to external agents”, and Kenneth A.R. Kennedy, who concludes “that while discontinuities in physical types have certainly been found in South Asia, they are dated to the 5th/4th, and to the 1st millennium BC, respectively, too early and too late to have any connection with ‘Aryans’.”"

"For example, Erdosy (1995) noted that cremation was pretty common in 2000 BCE Balochistan (Penano Ghundai II, Mughal Ghundai III, Dabar Kot, Mehi, Sutkagen-dor) but very rare in Central Asia: “If anything, on present evidence, cremations appear to have originated in the Indo-Iranian Borderlands and spread northwest (and southeast) thence, against the grain of postulated movements of Indo-Aryan speakers”."

"Iron Age levels have yielded dates of 2970 + 105 bp (TF-570) 1255, 1240, 1221 cal. BC and 2820 + 100 bp (TF-573) 993 cal. BC from Hallur, and 2905 + 105 bp (TF-326) 1096 cal. BC and 3130 + 105 bp (TF-324) 1420 cal. BC from Eran. They are not only earlier than any date from the Ganga valley (which dates fall between 2700-2500 bp) but are also earlier than the dates from Pirak in the northwest, with the exception of an anomalous reading of 2970 + 140 (Ly-1643) 1255, 1240, 1221 cal. BC. Since the process of diffusion from the west should produce rather the opposite pattern, a strong case can be made for an indigenous origin of ion smelting, although it could do with further support given the complexity of this industrial process which by common consent renders multiple centers of innovation unlikely."

"We reiterate that there is no indication in the Rigveda of the Arya‘s memory of any ancestral home, and by extension, of migrations. Given the pains taken to create a distinct identity for themselves, it would be surprising if the Aryas neglected such an obvious emotive bond in reinforcing their group cohesion. Thus their silence on the subject of migrations is taken here to indicate that by the time of composition of the Rigveda, any memory of migrations, should they have taken place at all, had been erased from their consciousness."

"As for Burrow‘s thesis that some place names reflect the names of geographical features to the west, and thus preserve an ancestral home, they once again rather rely on an assumption of Arya migrations than prove it. [...] His cited equivalence of Sanskrit Saraswati and Avestan Haraxvaiti is a case in point. Burrow accepts that it is the latter term that is borrowed, undergoing the usual change of s- > h in the process, but suggests that Saraswati was a proto-Indoaryan term, originally applied to the present Haraxvaiti when the proto-Indoaryans still lived in northeastern Iran, then it was brought into India at the time of the migrations, while its original bearer had its name modified by the speakers of Avestan who assumed control of the areas vacated by proto-Indoaryans. It would be just as plausible to assume that Saraswati was a Sanskrit term indigenous to India and was later imported by the speakers of Avestan into Iran. The fact that the Zend Avesta is aware of areas outside the Iranian plateau while the Rigveda is ignorant of anything west of the Indus basin would certainly support such an assertion."

"Evidence for the characterization of Dasas and Dasyus as black is tenuous in the extreme.... Even apparently clear indications of historical struggles between dark aborigines and Arya conquerors turn out to be misleading.... [The Dasas and Dasyus] appear to be demonic rather than human enemies.... It is a cosmic struggle which is described in detailed accounts that are consistent with one another.”"

"Arya and Dasa were only horizontal divisions, denoting groups of people living in their separate territories in north-western India... [dasyus were only] a segment of Dasas...[the term paṇi was used for people who were] rich and niggardly [and possibly] usurers, [and that the group of paṇis] cross-cuts the otherwise horizontal stratification of non-Aryas, [...] and may denote either an occupation or simply a set of values attributable to anyone."

"[Burrow] suggests that Saraswati was a proto-Indoaryan term, originally applied to the present Haraxvaiti when the proto-Indoaryans still lived in northeastern Iran.... It would be just as plausible to assume that Saraswati was a Sanskrit term indigenous to India and was later imported by the speakers of Avestan into Iran. The fact that the Zend Avesta is aware of areas outside the Iranian plateau while the Rigveda is ignorant of anything west of the Indus basin would certainly support such an assertion."

"Erdosy testifies that “the principal concern” of scholars (like Witzel) studying South Asian linguistics is to find “evidence for the external origins - and likely arrival in the 2nd millennium BC - of Indo-Aryan languages”;"

"Erdosy (1995a), who is prepared to find "some support" for small-scale migrations associated with the intrusive BMAC elements noted earlier, nonetheless states: "Several cultural traits with good Vedic and Avestan parallels have been found widely distributed between the southern Urals, Central Asia and the Indo-Iranian borderlands. However, even allowing for the uncertain chronology of Central Asian sites, few of these traits show the northwest-southeast gradient in chronology predicted by our linguistic models." Rather, in the manner of other traits commonly associated with the "Aryans" within South Asia, "they originate in different places at different times and circulate widely, undoubtedly through the extensive interaction networks built up in the mid-3rd to early 2nd millennia B.C." The main point is that "it is impossible, thus, to regard the widespread distribution of certain beliefs and rituals, which came to be adopted by Indo-Iranian speakers, as evidence of population movements" (12)."

"The idea has recently been challenged by archaeologists, who ― along with linguists ― are best qualified to evaluate its validity. Lack of convincing material (or osteological) traces left behind by the incoming Indo-Aryan speakers, the possibility of explaining cultural change without reference to external factors and ― above all ― an altered world-view (Shaffer 1984) have all contributed to a questioning of assumptions long taken for granted and buttressed by the accumulated weight of two centuries of scholarship...."

"In reading the genetics literature on South Asia, it is very clear that many of the studies actually start out with some assumptions that are clearly problematic, if not in some cases completely untenable. Perhaps the single most serious problem concerns the assumption, which many studies actually start with as a basic premise, that the Indo-Aryan invasions are a well-established (pre)historical reality. The studies confirm such invasions in large part because they actually assume them to begin with... Part of the reason that many geneticists prove Indo-Aryan invasions so frequently is that they give little if any consideration to other populations that have or may have entered South Asia in prehistoric and historic times.... Another problematic assumption in_ the genetics literature is that caste is unchanging."