Aligning Values and Politics argues that empowering individuals for self-actualization is an indispensable tool for attaining freedom; therefore, politics must align with the promotion of self-actualization. Private property rights have in the past helped people to develop skills, but such rights were abused. Once these rights are combined with an ethics of responsibility, the book opens the doors to a nonpartisan analysis of income inequality, inheritance, race relations, abortion and governance. The book argues that the American government is engaged in producing “bread and circuses,” inducing people into living vicariously. Using the ideas of Immanuel Kant, the authors claim that we can return to a civil society that values independence rather than entitlements.

A jaw-dropping exploration of everything that goes wrong when we build AI systems and the movement to fix them. Today’s “machine-learning” systems, trained by data, are so effective that we’ve invited them to see and hear for us—and to make decisions on our behalf. But alarm bells are ringing. Recent years have seen an eruption of concern as the field of machine learning advances. When the systems we attempt to teach will not, in the end, do what we want or what we expect, ethical and potentially existential risks emerge. Researchers call this the alignment problem. Systems cull résumés until, years later, we discover that they have inherent gender biases. Algorithms decide bail and parole—and appear to assess Black and White defendants differently. We can no longer assume that our mortgage application, or even our medical tests, will be seen by human eyes. And as autonomous vehicles share our streets, we are increasingly putting our lives in their hands. The mathematical and computational models driving these changes range in complexity from something that can fit on a spreadsheet to a complex system that might credibly be called “artificial intelligence.” They are steadily replacing both human judgment and explicitly programmed software. In best-selling author Brian Christian’s riveting account, we meet the alignment problem’s “first-responders,” and learn their ambitious plan to solve it before our hands are completely off the wheel. In a masterful blend of history and on-the ground reporting, Christian traces the explosive growth in the field of machine learning and surveys its current, sprawling frontier. Readers encounter a discipline finding its legs amid exhilarating and sometimes terrifying progress. Whether they—and we—succeed or fail in solving the alignment problem will be a defining human story. The Alignment Problem offers an unflinching reckoning with humanity’s biases and blind spots, our own unstated assumptions and often contradictory goals. A dazzlingly interdisciplinary work, it takes a hard look not only at our technology but at our culture—and finds a story by turns harrowing and hopeful.

Alan I. Abramowitz has emerged as a leading spokesman for the view that our current political divide is not confined to a small group of elites and activists but a key feature of the American social and cultural landscape. The polarization of the political and media elites, he argues, arose and persists because it accurately reflects the state of American society. Here, he goes further: the polarization is unique in modern U.S. history. Today’s party divide reflects an unprecedented alignment of many different divides: racial and ethnic, religious, ideological, and geographic. Abramowitz shows how the partisan alignment arose out of the breakup of the old New Deal coalition; introduces the most important difference between our current era and past eras, the rise of “negative partisanship”; explains how this phenomenon paved the way for the Trump presidency; and examines why our polarization could even grow deeper. This statistically based analysis shows that racial anxiety is by far a better predictor of support for Donald Trump than any other factor, including economic discontent.

Despite the backlash against lesbian and gay rights occurring in cities and states across the country, a growing number of corporations are actually expanding protections and benefits for their gay and lesbian employees. Why this should be, and why some corporations are increasingly open to inclusive policies while others are determinedly not, is what Nicole C. Raeburn seeks to explain in Changing Corporate America from Inside Out. A long-overdue study of the workplace movement, Raeburn's analysis focuses on the mobilization of lesbian, gay, and bisexual employee networks over the past fifteen years to win domestic partner benefits in Fortune 1000 companies. Drawing on surveys of nearly one hundred corporations with and without gay networks, intensive interviews with human resources executives and gay employee activists, as well as a number of case studies, Raeburn reveals the impact of the larger social and political environment on corporations' openness to gay-inclusive policies, the effects of industry and corporate characteristics on companies' willingness to adopt such policies, and what strategies have been most effective in transforming corporate policies and practices to support equitable benefits for all workers. Nicole C. Raeburn is assistant professor and chair of sociology at the University of San Francisco.

What are your organization’s policies for generating and using huge datasets full of personal information? This book examines ethical questions raised by the big data phenomenon, and explains why enterprises need to reconsider business decisions concerning privacy and identity. Authors Kord Davis and Doug Patterson provide methods and techniques to help your business engage in a transparent and productive ethical inquiry into your current data practices. Both individuals and organizations have legitimate interests in understanding how data is handled. Your use of data can directly affect brand quality and revenue—as Target, Apple, Netflix, and dozens of other companies have discovered. With this book, you’ll learn how to align your actions with explicit company values and preserve the trust of customers, partners, and stakeholders. Review your data-handling practices and examine whether they reflect core organizational values Express coherent and consistent positions on your organization’s use of big data Define tactical plans to close gaps between values and practices—and discover how to maintain alignment as conditions change over time Maintain a balance between the benefits of innovation and the risks of unintended consequences

This book provides a new theoretical perspective to election law showing how alignment theory would operate in practice, in both litigation and legislation.

Focuses on the integration of new technologies into digital government, generating new insights into e-government interoperability.