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Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

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Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#31

Post by yelloweyes »

motohagiography wrote: post #27

Slight unintended consequence is it creates a significant incentive for politicians to allow their expenses to be picked up by someone else. There are rules in many democracies where "gifts," over small amounts (~$50) must be reported to ethics commissions and scrutinized for opportunity by the opposition, media, and by extension, the public. In a simple risk game of likelihood vs. consequences, expensing a meal in a…

And the alternative is what? Just let them spend whatever they want? How can politicians in Sweden do the same job without spending exorbitant amounts of money? They clearly don't need this much money.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#33

Post by forinti »

Brazil is currently overly excited with fighting corruption when its greatest problems lie unperturbed.

Income is too concentrated, taxes are highly regressive, and half the federal budget goes into servicing the debt.

All spheres of brazilian government have achieved a good level of transparency. But the national debate is always skewed by the current scandal cooked up by the media (that's another serious issue: the media is also too concentrated).

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#34

Post by coliveira »

This project is interesting, but real corruption doesn't happen with receipts. Corrupt politicians will receive funds in offshore accounts and then work for foreigners, such as the foreign oil companies that are now taking vast amounts of Brazilian oil contracts for next to nothing. The corruption cases presented by the Brazilian media are peanuts compared to these shady deals involving big foreign investments.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#35

Post by mav3r1ck »

dorfsmay wrote: post #2

This project is using AI to analyse public data of receipts from elected government officials, detect anomalies and tweet about them. It has already led to a deputy to have to return funds to the government. There is very little material in English about this project, I finally spent some time to translate and create an English and French wikipedia page. I am not otherwise involved with this project (yet!) but think…

You already are quite involved by providing translations, thanks!

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#36

Post by wallflower »

On the topic of corruption, my Spanish teacher said that countries where corruption is endemic and part of the culture almost always started out as "extraction colonies". That is, the natural resources were plundered by the colonizers (the Spaniards or the British or the French). What present day politicians are doing is simply continuing the strong historical precedent of taking out riches/prosperity/profits/resources from the country for their own use.

In Haiti, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the leader of the slave rebellion who overthrew the colonizers rapidly became one of the "1%" and a de-facto colonizer once he gained power and they realized that slavery and plantations and serfdom was quite lucrative and profitable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Dessalines

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#37

Post by [deleted] »

motohagiography wrote: post #27

Slight unintended consequence is it creates a significant incentive for politicians to allow their expenses to be picked up by someone else. There are rules in many democracies where "gifts," over small amounts (~$50) must be reported to ethics commissions and scrutinized for opportunity by the opposition, media, and by extension, the public. In a simple risk game of likelihood vs. consequences, expensing a meal in a…

[deleted]

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#38

Post by SiempreViernes »

motohagiography wrote: post #27

Slight unintended consequence is it creates a significant incentive for politicians to allow their expenses to be picked up by someone else. There are rules in many democracies where "gifts," over small amounts (~$50) must be reported to ethics commissions and scrutinized for opportunity by the opposition, media, and by extension, the public. In a simple risk game of likelihood vs. consequences, expensing a meal in a…

I don't get most of the argument here, what are you trying to say?

Politicians are already incentivised to get their bribes indirectly, that's a natural consequence of doing something illegal while expecting to have your actions recorded. But beyond that I don't understand, are you saying that because the AI allows for such efficient oversight that politicians will be unable to hide large bribes and be forced to accept "insignificant bribes"? But even if the only effect is that corruption is much cheaper, what is the downside to that? At least more people can afford it then.

> it's really about protecting the people who are using what is essentially a Bayesian black box as an ethical proxy for their personal interest

How is fighting corruption best described by "personal interest"? The only way I can make sense of this is of you hold the belief that rule of law is not fundamental for a just society, and the circumvention of the law that corruption represents somehow makes societies more just.

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#39

Post by epx »

coliveira wrote: post #34

This project is interesting, but real corruption doesn't happen with receipts. Corrupt politicians will receive funds in offshore accounts and then work for foreigners, such as the foreign oil companies that are now taking vast amounts of Brazilian oil contracts for next to nothing. The corruption cases presented by the Brazilian media are peanuts compared to these shady deals involving big foreign investments.

This is the excuse of the impeached Workers Party ex-government. With a touch of fascism - "the foreigners are the real danger!!!!!11111".

The other excuse was that "corruption is small compared to the GDP". (And what about the chilling effects?)

Re: Operation Serenata de Amor – An AI project to analyze public spending in Brazil

#40

Post by marcosdumay »

DavidHm wrote: post #6
dorfsmay wrote: post #2

This project is using AI to analyse public data of receipts from elected government officials, detect anomalies and tweet about them. It has already led to a deputy to have to return funds to the government. There is very little material in English about this project, I finally spent some time to translate and create an English and French wikipedia page. I am not otherwise involved with this project (yet!) but think…

How is this project perceived by the government officials? I am sure (or at least hope) that some of them are very much in favour, but are there others calling into question the accuracy / legitimacy of these type of analyses?

Operations-level people overwhelmly love the idea. There is a big push inside the Brazilian government for publishing data, and Serenata de Amor is the showcase project for claiming "look, we just put the data out there and society can make good use of it".
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