While drivers in the U.S. are still waiting for autonomous vehicles to work out the bugs (hurry up Google), the daily travels of citizens of areas of Singapore are already being driven around by no one at all. Driverless pods are currently milling about school and business campuses and are going to be commonplace by the end of the year. 2getthere, the "sustainable travel company" of Asia has announced that, also by the end if the year, 24-passenger pods will be taking patrons from place to place. The driverless pods run by following a magnet track in the ground, much like a road you can't see. Singapore is testing lots of autonomous vehicles with lots of different technologies; for example, these golf carts as well.
Autonomous vehicle development, like what is happening in Singapore is not only cool, it's a way to reduce emissions, avoid accidents, and more. Where Google's autonomous vehicles travel on the road just as any of our cars do, these pods follow a pre-determined track which can help to avoid other cars and can be monitored and regulated. We've seen some Google mishaps in the news a few times already, and even the development of "decision making tech" in those vehicles can be iffy -- leaving it up to a car to decide which obstacle to run into in the case of an unavoidable accident is a little scary to me.
The energy aspect of the Singapore pods is also exciting. With much concern in the U.S. revolving around climate change, burning of fossil fuels, alternative energy and carbon emissions, I think it would be smart of us to look into testing this kind of technology on college or hospital campuses at the very least. Even if these pods don't make it on to the main road, they're still a great way to get around smaller communities. On the topic of charging --since these vehicles are electric -- along with moving easily from stop to stop, the pods can "seamlessly" move from charging block to track to stop and back to charging block. The take-away here is basically that with as much interest as there is in autonomous vehicles in the U.S., is still seems we're being outpaced by other nations, and maybe we should take some notes.
We, as humans, believe that we are inherently correct and seek out information that agrees with our thinking. How does this apply to our daily thinking or our consumption of products, services, and news?
Confirmation bias, or the interpreting of evidence or information in regards to existing beliefs, has been addressed often in the discussion of the presentation of news. Most believe that there should be no biases in news reporting, and journalists are taught to stay completely objective in the presentation of hard news. While, in a perfect world, consumers of news could watch/read news presented completely objectively and make educated decisions based on what they read, we do not live in a perfect world. News organizations have to incorporate what sells into the presentation of their stories. There is also a consideration of gatekeepers who run the media organizations. While the goal should always be objective reporting, people have a tendency to have strong opinions on political issues, which many times manifest themselves in subtle biases in reporting.
When we explore confirmation bias in the larger media outlets, we often encounter a widely-accepted thought pattern: "CNN and MSNBC are liberal, Fox is conservative." While this is now considered the norm, the media outlets themselves would never come out and admit to it. The media outlets, therefore, must disguise their biases as "just another way of reporting."
Let's look at Fox and MSNBC's reporting of the same story. A racially insensitive joke was told at a charity dinner recently, and both outlets wrote a story on it. Keeping in mind that Fox is considered conservative and MSNBC liberal, there is a subtle difference in the reporting in a couple ways:
Image and story from foxnews.com
Image and story from msnbc.com
1. The headlines: In Fox's case, the headline reads that both Mayor De Blasio and Hillary Clinton take part in the joke and draw criticism. If we consider Fox's possible confirmation bias, it would make sense that they would want to frame Hillary in this way. Whereas, in MSNBC's case, only De Blasio takes part in the joke, and even then it's presented as "coming at a bad time" rather than being "racially-tinged."
2. The visuals: Fox shows Clinton and De Blasio laughing and seemingly celebrating with the headline "racially-tinged joke" hovering above. It seems to be framed as the two enjoying the insensitive comment. MSNBC instead shows Clinton off to the side looking on as the joke is made. This way, she seems to not take part in the joke making. Clinton also is even standing next to the African-American gentleman, further separating herself from the insensitivity.
Images, as we've already seen, can speak a thousand words in reporting, and often do. The images we see can impact our impression of the candidate depicted. For these examples, I'll choose a picture of Ted Cruz from CNN and one from Fox.
Image from cnn.com
Image from foxnews.com
In these cases, the presentation of Ted Cruz is considered in the photos chosen to be published on the sites. CNN's picture choice is less than flattering, while Fox's looks like a campaign flier.
While minds won't necessarily be changed by only images or word choice, the presentation of information or images can alter the way that people think about a subject. Objective news reporting and an educated public would be preferable to what is widely accepted as a biased news environment, but in order to inform the public, the public must want to be informed. If it takes subtle biases (even no-so-subtle ones) to inform them, then so be it -- I'll take the news with a grain of salt.
Microsoft and Facebook, among other large tech companies, are leading the charge on closing the gender pay gap (article here). "Hired, an online jobs marketplace" conducted a study of more than 100,000 jobs, 15,000 candidates and 3,000 companies, revealing that the pay gap in Silicon Valley, on average, is about a 3 percent difference in salary to the advantage of males (in some extreme cases, the wage gap could be up to 30 percent). Part of the contribution to this gap in pay is what is referred to as the "expectation gap." This is the idea that women, in general, have come to expect to be paid less and, in turn, ask for less when applying for a job. There is a bright side though; Mashable also found that younger women entering the tech workforce are inclined to ask for more money upon entry.
Image from hired.com
Large companies like these leading this charge can be a big help with this workplace issue, but, in many cases, companies are tackling the issue of payment in the wrong ways. For example, Google, to address the concern of a pay gap internally, raised pay across the board. While a raise came to the women of the company, the pay gap remained, so the issue of men being paid more money for the same expectations remained.
The issue of a gender pay gap, just like many other things, begins at a young age with expectations. There must be organizations that empower women from a young age and develop training that prepares women to circumvent and fundamentally change the way they approach the tech field and the workplace as a whole -- and there are third parties which do just that. Global Fund for Women's Technology Initiative speaks directly to the issue of pay gaps. While Global Fund for Women deals with worldwide women's rights issues, they have developed an initiative for funding and providing access to training and educational opportunities in the STEM and IT fields.
Image from globalfundforwomen.org
While there should be celebration and optimism surrounding the recurring announcements of slashed pay gaps, that optimism should be cautious. There is still plenty of inequality and discrimination in this country's job market (often fear-based discrimination). Many, many more steps need to be taken in the right direction -- we haven't even begun to talk about the racial pay gap or the lack of gender neutral and transgender employment...
