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    Climate Change Induced Displacement: Leveraging Transnational Advocacy Networks to Address Operational Gaps
    Steven Livingston and Joseph Guay. 2/21/2017. “Climate Change Induced Displacement: Leveraging Transnational Advocacy Networks to Address Operational Gaps.” UNHCR .Abstract
    An article on climate change and induced displacement, by Carr Center's Senior Fellow Steven Livingston and Joseph Guay. 

    According to the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, “Few aspects of the human endeavor…are isolated from possible impacts in a changing climate. The interconnectedness of the Earth system makes it impossible to draw a confined boundary around climate change impact, adaptations, and vulnerability.”1 This includes human population displacements, which amounted to a staggering 51.2 million refugees, asylum-seekers, and internally displaced people (IDPs) in 2013.2

    Unfortunately, as the frequency, duration, and intensity of extreme events affecting populations are on the rise, the humanitarian aid community is stretched thin in the face of multiple complex emergencies and protracted challenges around the world

    Read the full post.

    Conference Report: Human Rights, Ethics, and Artificial Intelligence
    Carr Center Human Rights for Policy. 1/1/2019. “Conference Report: Human Rights, Ethics, and Artificial Intelligence.” Human Rights, Ethics, and Artificial Intelligence. See full text.Abstract
    Human Rights, Ethics, and Artificial Intelligence: Challenges for the Next 70 Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 

    In early December 2018, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, and the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society hosted an inaugural conference that aimed to respond to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights’ 70th Anniversary by reflecting on the past, present and future of human rights. The conference was organized by Carr Center Faculty Director Mathias Risse.

    Conference Report: Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century
    Steven Livingston and Sushma Raman. 2/21/2017. “Conference Report: Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century.” Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century. Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge, MA: Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. See full text.Abstract
    Technology and Human Rights Conference Report
    Technology & Human Rights in the 21st Century:
     

    On November 3 - 4, 2016, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School hosted a symposium that aimed to:

    1. Strengthen collaboration among stakeholders working on issues at the intersection of human rights and technology and

    2. Deepen our understanding of the nature of collaboration among different technical and scientific communities working in human rights.

    The symposium brought together practitioners and academics from different industries, academic disciplines and professional practices. Discussion centered on three clusters of scientific and technical capacities and the communities of practice associated with each of them. These clusters are:

    • Geospatial Technology: The use of commercial remote sensing satellites, geographical information systems (GIS), unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and geographical positioning satellites (GPS) and receivers to track events on earth.
       
    • Digital Networks: The use of digital platforms to link individuals in different locations working towards a common goal, such as monitoring digital evidence of human rights violations around the world. It often involves crowdsourcing the collection of data over digital networks or social computation – the analysis of data by volunteers using digital networks.
       
    • Forensic Science: The collection, preservation, examination and analysis of evidence of abuses and crimes for documentation, reconstruction, and understanding for public and court use. Among the more prominent evidential material in this area includes digital and multimedia evidence as well as corporal and other biologic evidence.  When considering the use of digital technologies, we might say that forensic science involves the recoding of material objects into binary code. This domain includes massively parallel DNA sequencing technologies as well as document scanning and data management technologies.

    In their landmark 1998 book, Activists Beyond Borders, Kathryn Sikkink and Margaret Keck wrote that “by overcoming the deliberate suppression of information that sustains many abuses of power, human rights groups bring pressure to bear on those who perpetuate abuses” (Keck and Sikkink, 1998, Kindle Locations 77-78).  The Carr Center’s symposium on technology and human rights explored the ways modern human rights organization use science and technology to overcome the deliberate suppression of information.

    Speakers discussed the latest advances in each of the key technologies represented at the symposium and used today by human rights organizations.

    Steven Livingston and Sushma Raman co-organized the event. Livingston is Senior Fellow at the Carr Center and Professor of Media and Public Affairs and Professor of International Affairs at the George Washington University; Raman is the Executive Director of the Carr Center at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

    Full online version here.

     

    Dangerous Science: Might Population Genetics or Artificial Intelligence Undermine Philosophical Ideas about Equality?
    Mathias Risse. 8/17/2020. “Dangerous Science: Might Population Genetics or Artificial Intelligence Undermine Philosophical Ideas about Equality?” Carr Center Discussion Paper Series, 2020-010. See full text.Abstract

    This paper was prepared for an interdisciplinary conference on Gefährliche Forschung? (Dangerous Science?) held at the University of Cologne in February 2020 and is scheduled to appear in a volume of contributions from that event edited by Wilfried Hinsch and Susanne Brandstätter, the organizers, and to be published by de Gruyter. The paper delves into the question proposed to me—might population genetics or artificial intelligence undermine philosophical ideas about equality—without locating the context of this debate or offering a preview of its contents. The first section discusses the ideal of equality, the next two talk about genetics in the context of responses to racism, and the remaining two speak about possible changes that might come from the development of general Artificial Intelligence.

    Read full text here. 

    Deepfakes are Solvable—but Don’t Forget That “shallowfakes” are Already Pervasive
    Mark Latonero. 3/25/2019. “Deepfakes are Solvable—but Don’t Forget That “shallowfakes” are Already Pervasive.” MIT Technology Review. See full text.Abstract
    New article features Carr Center Technology and Human Rights Fellow Mark Latonero.

    " Mark Latonero, human rights lead at Data & Society, a nonprofit institute dedicated to the applications of data, agreed that technology companies should be doing more to tackle such issues. While Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and others have employees focused on human rights, he said, there was so much more they should be doing before they deploy technologies—not after."

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