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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

#51

Post by forinti »

lbrito wrote: post #24

Interesting project, but the false positives might turn people off. Stuff like a 50 BRL (~15 USD) pizza receipt ( https://jarbas.serenata.ai/layers/#/documentId/5611260 ) are not that interesting in a country with much more lavish public spenders. Namely, I'd like to see more public scrutiny against the illegal salaries judges receive in Brazil - which sometimes are twice or three times greater than the legal limit.

I'd say there are lots of things that should be better discussed: royalties that mining companies should pay, fairer income tax, how much foreign companies get in fiscal incentives, inheritance tax, excessive use of agrochemicals, etc.

There is a long list of things that are not been adequately discussed. Sure, this is important, but it shouldn't take up as much of our collective attention as it does.

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

#53

Post by motohagiography »

SiempreViernes wrote: post #38
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 acce…

That seems like an uncharitable interpretation.

What I have said is that this particular AI approach changes the risks and incentives for politicians so that they are more likely to commit a greater number of small, but more real offenses, than the few outward anomalies the AI flags.

Which is worse? Expensing a bottle of wine, or having a vendor pick up the tab for an entire meeting? I would argue the latter has more impact on perceptions of corruption, yet this demoralized AI approach disproportionately punishes the former.

There is a style of argument that I'm starting to think of as "argument from tyranny," which begins with a denial of the coherence and legitimacy of the speaker, and ends with a defamation of character. They call it "sealioning," on the internets, but it bears more scrutiny, because it is part of why people are reduced to using pseudonyms.

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

#54

Post by lbrito »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #47
onetimemanytime wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Like in most of the 3rd world ...voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. All the above in US is called "lobbying" and it's legal, so you really can't jail anyone for it. USA voters don't do much better, don't worry. We just have a printing machine that churns out new dollars at record pace so we face no debt deadlines.

Brazil is much, much worse off than the US. There the corruption goes all the way to the lowest levels of government. In the US local politicians don't pay a couple of bucks to a thousand dirt poor voters to vote in the county elections so they can win. In Brazil this happens everywhere.

Untrue. I've lived in Arizona for a year; have you heard of sheriff Joe Arpaio?

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/criminal-enterprise-a-cu...

One could say the US is just as corrupt, or more, than Brazil.

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

#55

Post by lbrito »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #43
diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

We're talking about a country that gave 1.35 million votes to a literal clown [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiririca

The world's largest economic power and largest democracy, aka United States, elected a Western movie actor and a Reality TV star as presidents. The clown pales in comparison.

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

#56

Post by onetimemanytime »

TremendousJudge wrote: post #47
onetimemanytime wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>Like in most of the 3rd world ...voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. All the above in US is called "lobbying" and it's legal, so you really can't jail anyone for it. USA voters don't do much better, don't worry. We just have a printing machine that churns out new dollars at record pace so we face no debt deadlines.

Brazil is much, much worse off than the US. There the corruption goes all the way to the lowest levels of government. In the US local politicians don't pay a couple of bucks to a thousand dirt poor voters to vote in the county elections so they can win. In Brazil this happens everywhere.

That's the problem, it costs us a lot more than a few bucks. Billions and billions in spending or the US Senator will not vote the bill, or block it. F-35 is made in 45 states, only because all Senators and Congressmen want to buy votes (indirectly) http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/07/08/the-pentagons-399-billio...

In Brazil they do it the honest way.

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

#57

Post by coliveira »

epx wrote: post #39
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?)

If you don't believe that Shell/BP can buy politicians to have easy access to oil, you should better get acquainted with the politics of other countries [0]. This is the first thing I thought about when I heard about big oil reserves in Brazil.

[0] https://www.ft.com/content/a9e193de-2044-11e7-a454-ab0442897...

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

#58

Post by ionforce »

diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

Pode explicar a tradução ou conexão para as palavras, vira e lita. Não significam "look" e "can"?

Não sou brasileiro.

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

#59

Post by anderber »

ionforce wrote: post #58
diego_moita wrote: post #41

Disclaimer: I am a former Brazilian. I am what in Brazil is called in pejorative terms "vira-lata" (stray dog), someone that fell out of love for his native country. Because a lot of people in this thread are patriotic Brazilians I anticipate a lot of downvotes. This project is nothing more than a sharper and better diagnosis of topical symptoms. Unfortunately, the underlying disease remains without treatment. And if…

Pode explicar a tradução ou conexão para as palavras, vira e lita. Não significam "look" e "can"? Não sou brasileiro.

"Vira-Lata" literally translates to "Can-Turner". But the meaning is of a stray-dog.

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

#60

Post by gomox »

lenilsonjr wrote: post #28
gomox wrote: post #19

I love the idea, but a quick review of tweets shows a bunch of seemingly inconsequential reports for meal refunds where the issue is that the meal price is an outlier, but prices listed are 39 to 75 BRL (12-25 USD). That doesn't strike me as a funny meal price. Assuming it's not an error, it would be nice to have some additional context on what the observed distribution of meal prices is, because at a cursory glance…

Take this one, for instance: https://jarbas.serenata.ai/layers/#/documentId/6185347 R$239.50 or $74. That's 25% the minimum wage here in Brazil. This means that this congressman was paying for someone else's meal, which is in itself an act of corruption. And even if that's not the case, most Brazilians can't afford a 40 BRL meal on a regular basis, so why should a politician be able to do so with our money? If you di…

I think there are two separate issues.

I don't know whether paying for someone else's lunch is OK according to regulations for meal stipends in Brazil. I wouldn't call that corruption off hand, but it might be forbidden. I defer to you on this.

Personally I live in Buenos Aires and I regularly spend USD 15 on a no frills lunch menu in a fancy-ish neighborhood (nothing fancy for the food itself, no desert, the kind of place where a group of 20 people from nearby offices have a loud lunch). From my experience Sao Paulo is more expensive than Buenos Aires, so it didn't strike me as odd initially.

That's out of reach for the statistical average of income from Argentineans, but it's not an amount that a congressman wouldn't be able to afford on their own dime. I certainly wouldn't get outraged at the expense or assume corruption - congressmen are paid significantly above minimum wage.

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