Briefings

The long arguments, written down.

Three documents we keep returning to in the drafting work: why explanation is hard to require, why fifty years of privacy bills have not passed, and how an identity system works when there are no documents to check.

Briefing · Explainability

Why we cannot ask a model why

A history of explainable AI, from decision trees to deep learning, and why the legal right to an explanation arrived just as systems stopped being able to give one.

5 sections · 8-point timeline · PDF

Briefing · Privacy

Fifty years of nearly passing a privacy law

American privacy law was built one sector at a time, for a reason. This is the history of that choice, the bills that tried to reverse it, and why the closest attempt still failed.

5 sections · 8-point timeline · PDF

Project guide · Digital identity

Identity on a SIM card

A digital identity and zero-interest microlending system built for people with a phone number and no documents. How registration, verification and lending actually work.

6 sections · PDF

Construction progress at a research facility — The unfinished state is the one worth photographing.Foster Wheeler Corporation