Personanondata

Colbert Questions - Its his last week!

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Tue, 19 May 2026 10:30:22 -0400

Over on Substack I have answered the Colbert questionnaire definitively.

https://open.substack.com/pub/personanondata/p/colbert-questionnaire?r=l018f&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Join me there.

Substack Migration

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Thu, 14 May 2026 16:31:58 -0400

Hello,

I have migrated all PND content over to substack where all the cool kids are. At this late stage they may be grown ups.

I think eventually I will retire Blogger but haven't reached that point yet. I will post new material on substack from this point forward.

Follow this link: https://personanondata.substack.com/

Supply Dies In Irrelevance

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Tue, 21 Apr 2026 03:57:00 -0400

For most of history, publishers have exercised control by managing supply. Publishers decided what was published, when and where it appeared, how it was structured, and how it could be read. This model governed research and professional content, where scarcity, prestige, and distribution barriers established the publisher’s control. In this world, users adapted to the content and their workflows and processes where governed by the methods employed by the publisher. Increasingly the opposite situation is developing as AI tools gain acceptance and become embedded.

AI is shifting value away from static units of content and toward dynamic use. Of course, this isn’t happening overtly but that is the effective reality. Researchers, professionals, and students increasingly expect to interrogate, remix, summarise, and contextualise information on their own terms. Instead of navigating publisher‑defined products—journals, books, databases—users are defining their own workflows and asking systems to pull insight from content wherever it lives. Prompt engineering becomes both art form and practical need. The locus of control moves from supply to demand, from what is published to how it is used.

The impact on publishers is already evident. Traditional value propositions built around access, distribution, and format are under pressure. When AI tools can synthesise thousands of articles into a single response, the journal issue or monograph becomes less visible, even if the underlying content, structure and method remains critical. This is not simply a discoverability problem; it is a power shift. Control based on gatekeeping access weakens when users no longer need to “enter” publisher platforms to extract value.

This creates a real risk of disintermediation. Publisher brands can be reduced to upstream data sources powering someone else’s interface, with little direct relationship to the end user. At the same time, users gain new leverage. They increasingly decide which content integrates cleanly into AI‑mediated workflows and which does not. What content is useful and what is fluff. (We will find out there’s a lot of fluff). Content that is difficult to discover, poorly structured, or legally ambiguous is or will be simply bypassed. Demand, rather than supply, defines relevance.

Many publishers are already responding to this shift. Elsevier’s development of AI‑enabled products such as Scopus AI reflects a move away from passive hosting toward active participation in researcher workflows—answering questions, mapping concepts, and accelerating discovery. Wolters Kluwer has embedded AI across its professional platforms to support decision‑making rather than document retrieval, recognising that its users value outcomes over exhaustive research and reading. Springer Nature’s partnerships around AI‑assisted writing and review tools similarly acknowledge that interaction now matters as much as publication.

These examples illustrate an important point: publishers are not necessarily losing power, but they are losing a particular kind of power. Control no longer comes from restricting access or enforcing rigid usage models. Instead, influence comes from being indispensable within workflows defined by users and mediated by AI. The value proposition in metadata, taxonomy, or simple organisation, which may have been obscure may now attain greater recognition. In the past, content owners banked on friction to support their value prop: Power now shifts from gatekeeping to enablement.

A critical enabler of this transition is metadata. In an AI‑driven environment, content that is not well described is effectively invisible. Rich, consistent, machine‑readable metadata allows systems to understand what content is about, how it relates to other work, and why it should be surfaced in response to a particular question. Metadata provides semantic meaning rather than surface description, enabling discovery based on intent rather than keyword coincidence. Taxonomic management should be prioritised.

Persistent identifiers, structured abstracts, domain‑specific taxonomies, and clear rights metadata ensure that content can travel across platforms without losing context, attribution, or provenance. As discovery increasingly happens outside publisher‑owned environments—within AI assistants, enterprise systems, and institutional tools—metadata becomes the primary mechanism through which publishers maintain visibility, relevance and ownership. In this sense, metadata is no longer back‑office infrastructure; it is strategic capital.

Metadata also plays a central role in trust. In a landscape increasingly populated by synthetic and unverified material, signals such as peer‑review status, editorial oversight, versioning, and correction history influence what AI systems choose to surface. Users may not see these signals directly, but the systems acting on their behalf do. Publishers who expose trust markers clearly increase both discoverability and credibility at precisely the moment when reliability is questioned.

The balance of power that emerges may be asymmetrical but will not zero‑sum. Users now dominate the how of interaction: how content is queried, combined, and applied. Publishers retain influence over the quality of what circulates: accuracy, provenance, editorial accountability, and long‑term stewardship. What has changed is that authority must now be earned at the point of use, not assumed at the point of publication and preeminence is not assured.

This reality requires concrete change. Content must be structured and enriched at source, not retrofitted. Licensing models need to articulate clearly how content can be indexed, summarised, cited, or embedded by AI systems. Publishers must design for modular, question‑based discovery, recognising that users increasingly want answers rather than documents. Publishers may have to eliminate content silos and/or consider broader partnership arrangements.

High‑quality content remains essential fuel for AI, and publishers are uniquely positioned as creators, mentors and custodians. But relevance in an AI‑driven world no longer flows from owning supply. It flows from aligning with demand—supporting how knowledge is actually accessed, used, and interpreted. Publishers who recognise this shift, and adapt accordingly, can remain central to the ecosystems they helped build. Those who cling to a supply‑led model risk discovering that control, once lost, is not replaced by negotiation, but by irrelevance.

Read more about the impact of AI on usage.

Publishing Technology Report 2026: ERP, CRR, PIM, Editorial - Detailed Vendor Profiles (Updated)

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 10:39:00 -0400

A fully revised version of my Publishing Technology Software and Services Report (2026) is now available at a special price of $499.00. To complete this report my team and I identified more than 200 software and services companies popular with publishers and gathered research and conducted interviews with the most relevant companies. We also spoke with customers to apply their views and opinions about the market and these suppliers.

Use this button to purchase and download the report immediately:

PURCHASE NOW

In this 195 page report we cover many operational and functional areas served by these companies including Order to Cash, Financials, Title (Product) Management, Contract Rights and Royalties, Editorial, Production and Scheduling, Subscription Management, Digital Asset Management, Digital Asset Distribution and Content Management Services.

To produce this report, we researched more than 35 companies and created 5-7 page detailed profiles of each company including company product information and outlook. We have also created our own analysis and market overviews.

This report is relevant for any publisher with technology requirements and anticipating a vendor and/or platform change in the near future.

The following companies were profiled in detail:

Advantage Computer Systems

ARPHA/Pensoft

Aries Systems
Atypon

Cadmore Media

CCC
censhare
Consonance
CyberWolf/ACUMEN

Data Conversion Labs

eJournal Press

Global Publishing Solutions Ltd (GPSL)
FADEL

Firebrand
Klopotek

Lumina DataMatics
Highwire/MPS

Iptor/IP1 (Bookmaster)
MetaComet
MultiPub
Naviga/Media Services Group

River Valley Technologies

Scholastica
Schilling A/S
Silverchair

That's Rights

Trilogy Group
Typefi Systems
Tizra
Virtusales

Vistex

Use this button to purchase and download the report immediately:

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The Librarians: PBS Independent Lens Documentary. Protecting Freedon to Read

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 13:54:00 -0500

Summary:The Librarians - protecting the freedom and right to read. From the underfunded PBS. Part of their code of conduct to fight censorship and support the first amendment. Work which is really important.

Predictions 2026: My Friend HAL Makes the Future

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Wed, 7 Jan 2026 08:37:00 -0500

Predictions have been a hit or miss phenomenon at PND over the past few years (since 2018 it seems) and in the intervening years since my last essay things have changed. For instance, I could have had this written (in my voice) by copilot and it would be pretty good; but where’s the satisfaction in that? I could also offer the option for the post to be read aloud by Clint Eastwood. The good, the bad, and the ugly bits.

It’s not news to say AI and LLMs are both exciting and terrifying. There is a joke job posting going around for a candidate employed only to pull the plug out of the wall if the robot gets out of control and risks the end of humanity. That said, humanity has some explaining to do at the moment: It’s a tossup which offers the worse potential outcome.

There is little doubt of the impact of AI and AI tools on virtually every aspect of our life now. In most cases the impact has been modest but I don’t need to go far out on a limb to say AI will become both fundamental to everyday activities but also often invisible to us very soon. The practical use of AI tools is eliminating grunt work like spreadsheet manipulation, document summaries, article comparisons and writing generally. Yesterday, I used Gemini to update a technology company profile essay I had written five years ago with the instruction to update the essay with new information and updates occurring since the original article was written. I would not immediately ‘publish’ this essay but in my estimation, it will take only 20% of the time to do the updated essay as it did to do the original and most of that 20% will be to confirm the AI work is accurate. (I could use a different tool to confirm the Gemini version is accurate).

Companies are aggressively encouraging staff to experiment and use AI tools. We are not done with the teething problems and work must continue on AI governance and acceptable practices which is why many corporations are establishing a ‘Chief AI officer’ to manage these aspects and establish internal and generally accepted standards. While this activity is almost universal across industries, I believe there is too much over exuberance regarding the short term impacts of AI and there will be a stock market reset sometime in 2026. Longer term, AI will have more impact than the personal computer – perhaps more than the wheel.

Here are my predictions for 2026:

Robot tax. This idea will gain more steam in 2026 and legislation will be proposed to tax the use of robots and AI tools which ‘replace’ human labor with the objective of substituting for lost welfare tax (Social Security) revenues. The goal shall be to provide supplemental income, investment for (re)training and retirement income. Strongly endorsed by white collar unions it will naturally be opposed by business. Despite the tax, “robots” will remain significantly cost effective versus humanity.
AI enabled editorial operating models. Generative AI tools will evolve from ‘on request’ or ‘user enabled’ tools to fully integrated editorial solutions designed to accept manuscripts, suggest editorial improvements, establish predictive success metrics, rewrite/redraft submissions, provide suggested marketing and sales attributes and create and/or propose ancillary product features such as video/audio and reader guides. Publishers will administer review cycles at defined points in the process as well as the formal approval process. There is the likelihood that editorial and production cycle times will be cut by 50-75% and through put increased exponentially. Sub rights and permissions will be handled in similar automated manner. Governance and bias issues will remain challenging requiring human intervention for a significant amount of time.
Speakers bureau. Per my suggestion to use the voice of Clint Eastwood we will see more and more license deals for voices and image (avatars). This will not only have implications for accessibility but will accord user determined language/localization without the need for studio time. This opportunity will also apply to character virtualization with authors and media creators invited into the creative process to formalize audio and avatar versions of their characters. Whether this could evolve into sponsor and spokesperson partnerships would be an interesting further enhancement.
LLM modelling will increasingly see value in the creation of ‘siloed’ versions such that the best available ingestible content will be sourced for definitive RAG like LLM models. These subject specific will become the category leaders and form a barrier to entry with the source material(s) tied up in license deals. A important component of this scenario will be the inclusion of standard ontology and managed dictionaries which will govern terminology and interrelationships.
Multi-modal publishing in academic science. During 2026 we will see a major academic journal go full ‘multi-modal’ whereby publishing consists of text, audio, short/long form video, info graphic, raw (test) data, class instruction, etc., and in any language all available on publication day. Additionally, metadata will be constructed to enable AI enablement within LLM models with clear context and attribution enabled.
Usage data: Remains a conundrum for the academic community with librarians confused by COUNTER reports showing precipitous declining usage but increased or stable scholar/researcher satisfaction. Publishers will pressure the industry to create new usage models although there will be no consensus on how to do this. In a significant related scenario, the five major commercial academic publishers will proactively close their platforms to non-licensed LLM/AI tools access by mid-year.

We are in an age (or entering an age) where the strategic questions about business options, tactics and consequences are potentially existential. Our businesses will not operate the same in five years as they do today and everything about our businesses will be different because of the impacts of AI and how LLM models are commercialized. Consider the above as suggested guide posts in exploring how your business will change but most importantly don't get left on the dock as the tide turns.

Reach out if you would like to discuss consulting projects around these or other business/operational challenges you may be facing. michael . cairns @ outlook.com or via linkedin.

What did I get up to in 2025?

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Mon, 15 Dec 2025 08:30:00 -0500

I have not done this in a while (and this is mostly for my own gratification) and there isn't anything extraordinary in this list of personal markers. It hasn't been the best of years for any number of reasons but then again this time last year I was counting four people I know who had died within the previous two months. So like Mr. O'Reilly said to Basil, "there's always someone worse off than yourself". To which Basil replies, "I'd like to meet him, I could do with a laugh".

By my count I've read 22 books (so far) this year. I'll probably finish 2 more by the end of the month and this number is a normal total for me. I continue to use Librarything to catalog my books which is where the image of all the covers comes from.

Highlights:

The Wide Wide Sea - About Capt James Cook's final voyage in the Pacific was a fascinating and very engaging read
The Finest Hotel in Kabul - Almost a social history of Kabul between 1969 and 2010 centered around the Hotel Intercontinental Kabul where my family and I had stayed in the early 1970s. Written by a journalist who spent months there this also was an excellent read.
A Northern Wind: This is a social history of England (and is part of a series by this author) and covers the early 1960s. An incredibly exciting period in England when The Beatles were launched on the scene, the conservative government was running out of steam and there was a promise of change.

I travel a lot for work which can be tiring and is not the glamorous life some think but if you plan your itinerary closely you can take advantage of these travels to visit places you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to see.

Mrs PND and I were able to take vacation in Australia, New Zealand and Costa Rica this year and feel lucky to be able to do that. She had not visited NZ and I had not been there since we lived there in the early 1970s. It wasn't without mishap: We almost were unable to leave the US because I wasn't able to get my visa approved. A frantic effort at Newark airport which involved my second passport and we were allowed to get on the flight. Then on day two, MRS PND had her phone stolen (we got to visit with the NZ police) but was then returned to us by a kind stranger two days later.

8 international visits: Australia, New Zealand, England, Germany, Costa Rica, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong

6 state visits: Minnesota, Pennsylvania (2), Washington DC (4), Colorado, Maryland, New York

One of the benefits of all the travel I do is that I try to fit in "culture" as much as I can. In 2025 I was able to visit 18 Museums and/or Art Institutes during the year many of which I had never been to. That number does not include any in NYC so I should take care of that over Christmas.

Highlights:

Philips Collection (Washington DC)
Auckland Art Gallery
Christies London
Clark Institute (Williamstown)
Clyfford Still Museum (Denver)

I had not realized until I went back through my diary that we saw ten stage productions this year. Dorian Gray was almost overwhelming - full on multimedia assault, made all the more impressive since Sarah Snook played 26 roles in the production.

Highlights:

Picture of Dorian Gray - incredible fusion of multimedia
Operation Mincemeat - which I didn't think I'd like but it was excellent

Ten productions is unusual and would normally be less than five. Happily, there were no disappointments.

Other stats:

1600 photos uploaded to LightRoom (and always impossible to pick the best one)
Complete TV series including Severance, Down Cemetery Road (see books), Slow Horses (see books), Shrinking, The Studio, Your Friends and Neighbors, Silo, Stick, Platonic, Black Doves, Decameron, Dept Q, Handmaid's Tale, The Last of Us, White Lotus, Say Nothing.
Approx 1700 miles exercise
Only one music concert (where a heavy rain storm cut the show in half)
Thankfully, no travel mishaps this year (not like 2024).

Apple+ counted the following as my music choices in 2025:

Rolling Stones - (not really surprising - listened to Hackney Diamonds on the running machine)
Neil Young
John Hiatt
The Black Keys
The Beatles
Tom Waits
Modest Mouse
REM
Crowded House
Led Zeppelin

Note - I think Lily Allen's album West End Girl is one of the best I've heard in quite a while.

Costa Rica: Haven of Relaxation

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Wed, 10 Dec 2025 08:56:00 -0500

Recently came back from a week in Costa Rica.

Some travel reviews from this year's vacation:

Hotel Rio Perdido an SLH (Hilton Affiliated)

This is the second visit to Rio Perdido and we are already planning our next visit. This eco hotel is situated in lush green forest approximately 2 hour drive from Liberia airport. The drive is safe and only until the last two miles are they unsurfaced roads.

Once at the hotel you will be met in the parking lot by a staff member to bring you to check in. Our room was one of the smaller units, but these are entirely suitable for two travelers. You can arrange to have the minibar stocked beforehand and then relax on your private lanai. Each of the units are free standing and you are unlikely to see or hear other guests. This is a very tranquil location although that can be interrupted as a family of monkeys may pass through the trees around you.

While it may rain frequently, the lanai is well protected so you can remain outside and not get too wet. Breakfast, which is included in your rate, is well done with enough choices and each of which is well prepared. Dinner is also curated and delivered well. There are no other food choices near this hotel but even if you are staying for four or five days that will not be a problem. There are many activities to participate in but if you only want to bike or hike alone there are many options, and the scenery is fantastic. On return, visit the heated pool to relax. There are some guided activities, and the canyon experience is a lot of fun (which we did the first time visiting).

Restaurant:

Gastronomic heaven above the clouds at San Lucas Treetop Dining Experience From the moment you arrive at this restaurant after a long drive up the mountain you will be treated like long lost friends visiting for the afternoon. From the road, you will be forgiven for some disappointment but as soon as you are escorted from the parking to the door of the restaurant you will realize the attraction of this location. Each table is set inside its own glass room suspended around and above the treeline. Outward facing are the green valleys of Guanacaste stretching all the way to the sea. Our 12 course lunch in October was spectacular and an exceptional experience. The food was excellent, the service was friendly, personal and knowledgeable and we enjoyed speaking about the food selected and prepared and how each course evoked a particular character of a specific part of Costa Rica. Each course can be paired with a wine selection to complete the experience. For those driving, note that the non-alcoholic cocktails selected for each course are also well done and do not diminish from the experience. We would do this again on our next trip to CR. There are also several hotel rooms available which makes dinner a better option.

Hotel: El Mangroove - Marriott Property

The rooms are quirky and the constant music in all the public areas might be annoying, but these issues are offset by the friendliness of the hotel staff, the pool facilities and the access to the public beach immediately in front of the hotel. Dining at the hotel was well done with the staff highly attentive and personable. We visited this hotel when there were very few guests and thus our experience may be different if the hotel were busy. We especially liked the adult only pool (and yes, this is policed by staff) but families with children will also like the much larger family pools. Do not expect that your Marriott status will be recognized with an upgrade. Seating in the restaurant seems determined by your room rate and thus you might find yourself always seated in the back facing a hedge (rather than the pool). Asking nicely to move might solve that issue. While the hotel is good value (our rate was around $225/night), the cheaper rooms are small and the weird layout doesn't help. One word of caution, try not to be on in the rooms immediately overlooking the carport/entrance. Both the traffic noise and the constant music will not be relaxing. (That said, it is very quiet at night). The hotel is also less than 40mins from Liberia Airport.

And if you are interested click on this link to see more from Tripadvisor.

Looking to Transition to Plan B?

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 08:55:00 -0500

Back in the dark past of 2018, Plan S launched with the objective of destroying the business models of academic commercial publishers and making publicly funded research open and 'free'. The Plan S Open Access model (OA) was long anticipated but still shocking to the industry when it finally came. Like the grunts on Omaha beach, journal publishers could be forgiven for thinking "This is it. We may not come out of this one". The Plan S vision foretold a world where research funded by Coalition S members would be published fully OA without embargo periods. They even specified a date(s) when this 'transition' had to be completed. Plan S promised to end the subscription-based model with the scholarly publishing community confronting a fundamentally changed business environment.

Plans go awry once they start shooting at you.

Unquestionably, some objectives of Plan S have been met. There does appear to be significantly more OA publishing is some scholarly fields - particularly physical sciences. Are these collections any easier to access? That is debatable. Have the largest commercial publishers successfully adapted their business models, continued to consolidate and entrench their positions? Undoubtedly, yes. Are society publishers under greater financial pressure? Harder to answer, but almost certainly their financial options are less favorable than the pre-Plan S years: Fewer large dollar consolidations with commercial publishers, less ability to leave deals, less money to spend on society objectives.

Yet given this back ground, the recent announcement by PlanS still comes as a surprise and signals something like a retreat from the founding principles of OA as a transformational construct. The new directive allows for concessions which weaken the original premise: Hybrid journals are now allowed which presents a significant concession to both publishers, funders and researchers who have been unwilling to carry the full costs of OA publishing. Notably, libraries also face both real and administrative costs in an OA workflow which is rarely fully acknowledged. We now seem to have a less dogmatic and inflexible approach but one which draws into question the very point of the OA effort since 2018.

What does it all mean?

In the short team, probably not a lot. Although in some publishing board rooms there may be some difficult questions raised over the next few months about the business strategy. In a hybrid world, large commercial publishers will extend their size and market clout and Article Processing Charge (APC) and traditional subscription models will carry on uninhibited. Arguably, looking forward we may be in a worse situation vis-a-vis affordability and access than before Plan S started. The gap between underdeveloped and underfunded may well be wider: Since 2018 we have had further business consolidations and the subscription + APC pricing models are now entrenched. Did we really believe commercial publishers would roll over? Elsevier's operating margin is estimated to larger now than it was five years ago.

Perhaps this Plan S announcement will be viewed as a tactical adjustment, an insignificant bump in the road to transformative OA but it really doesn't seem like it. What began as a Teutonic dictate to the industry at large, now looks more like a research article which hasn't made it out of peer review. It probably will not be published.

Black Box, White Collar: How AI Learned to Reject You in Milliseconds

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Wed, 1 Oct 2025 08:30:00 -0400

A recent research article published in APA''s Journal Consulting Psychology Journal titled, Some Ethical and Legal Issues in Using Artificial Intelligence in Personnel Selection by Dr. Olaf Ringelband and Dr. Christian Warneke looked at the use of AI in the hiring process. The article can be found on psycnet.apa.org

If you have experienced AI in the sandbox which is LinkedIn you might have a predisposed view - that is negative, on the use of AI in the hiring process. But more and more companies are using AI not only to match and screen but also to interview candidates for important roles. For my part, thanks to LinkedIn's matching system, I now get daily notifications about exciting opportunities that require 10 years of experience in technologies that were invented 3 years ago, which really makes me feel like I'm nailing this whole career thing.

The Problem with Algorithmic Hiring
Ringelband and Warnke remind us that artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the landscape of personnel selection. What began as a promising tool for streamlining recruitment has evolved into a complex ethical and legal minefield. AI systems, trained on historical data, now influence hiring and promotion decisions across industries. Yet the opacity of these systems—particularly those based on deep learning—raises troubling questions. Their “black box” nature makes it difficult to discern how decisions are made, and whether they are fair. The risk is that AI may not only replicate existing biases but institutionalize them, all under the guise of efficiency.

The authors of this article set up the discussion in the following way:

In the present article, we aim to translate research into practice by highlighting the points of contact between assessment and AI and by focusing on the data available for assessment AI tools. As the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Guidelines for Psychological Assessment and Evaluation (2020) states, “Inasmuch as computer technology, test instrument usage, and new instrument design are constantly evolving, the responsibilities and challenges to the psychologist practitioner using these modalities are likewise substantial.” (p. 22).

It's All Too Seductive
The allure of AI in hiring is undeniable. Algorithms score assessments, generate interview questions, and produce written feedback at a rate far exceeding most HR departments. They promise speed, cost savings, and the promise of objectivity. But the same systems can also discriminate in ways more insidious than human bias. A model trained on data from successful executives might favor middle-aged men with degrees in engineering, thereby excluding women and minorities. Worse, AI can exploit behavioral data—mouse clicks, dwell time, social media activity—of debatable relevance to the job requirements or as a predictor of success, without explicit consent, raising serious privacy concerns. As the authors state, as 'participants' (willing or not) in these solutions, there is a requirement to be better informed how and when these tools are being used. Of course, transparency may not be in a corporations best interest.

Fixing the Machine

Candidates should know when AI is involved, what data are being used, and how decisions are made. Human oversight is essential; AI should assist, not replace, recruiters. Bias audits and retraining of models can help mitigate discrimination, though these require technical expertise and organizational will. The authors advise, consulting psychologists, with their grounding in ethics and statistical methods, are well-positioned to lead this charge. But they must be able to speak the language of algorithms—and to challenge them and the supporters when required.

Prudent Regulation
While the authors may be slightly naive in their advice to cautiously embrace AI since the train is now long gone from the station, they are right that corrective measures must be adopted which are grounded in established psychological theory and ethical standards. Additionally, regulatory frameworks must evolve to keep pace with technological disruption. While no one seems to be saying that AI in hiring is implemented without any human interaction, decisions affecting human lives should not be left to machines alone. Which might seem obvious but that is probably a goal written on a ppt deck somewhere in Palo Alto. Governance comes up a lot when AI is mentioned - possibly because of the lack of it, but as the technology matures, so too must the governance surrounding it. The future of hiring depends not just on smarter algorithms, but on wiser humans.

(Note: I wrote this with help from Co-pilot - like a class assignment. Claude came up with the post title. And CGPT for the image).

APA's PsycArticles contains more than 250,000 full text research articles in psychology but many of these articles have real world business implications relevant to researchers and students in academic disciplines outside psychology and social sciences.

Anthropic's $1.5 Billion Bargain Bin

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Fri, 12 Sep 2025 06:22:00 -0400

On the back of the proposed Anthropic copyright settlement there is almost certainly a long line forming outside the Association of American Publishers (AAP) headquarters to get a piece of the action. In the form of a large copyright penalty discount that is.

Despite the strong objection of Judge William Alsup, who has temporarily rejected the $1.5Billion settlement between Anthropic and a class of authors, this settlement agreement will probably survive. The rejection may appear to delay justice, but it also temporarily protects authors from a deeply flawed agreement that will undermine their long-term interests. While the payout is historic in scale, Judge Alsup rightly flagged concerns about vague documentation, inadequate notice, and the risk of coercing authors into a settlement they may neither fully understand nor meaningfully helped shape. His unease, with the potential for attorneys and organizations to pressure authors reflects a broader fear; that the settlement was more about expediency than equity. When your professional advocates, in this case, the AAP and Authors Guild (AG) immediately endorse the settlement as a done deal that may not be coercive but it definitely represents pressure.

The case itself is unusually clear-cut. Unlike most AI copyright disputes, which hinge on the unsettled doctrine of fair use, this one involved Anthropic’s admitted use of pirated books from notorious sources like LibGen and PiLiMi. Judge Alsup’s ruling drew a sharp line—fair use may apply to lawfully acquired books, but piracy is indefensible. With an estimated 500,000 infringing works, statutory damages could have reached tens of billions of dollars. Yet the settlement proposed a flat $3,000 per work, a figure that risks – perhaps is already - becoming a de facto benchmark for future cases. (By the way, fine print suggests the authors won’t actually receive $3,000 per work).

For authors, this would mean accepting a valuation of their work far below what the law allows, and far below what justice demands. Admittedly, in the stark reality of publishing, $3,000 is far more than most of those works are going to generate for their authors, but that is not the point. Copyright law exists to both protect copyright holders (authors) and heavily penalize those who breach copyright. That’s not happening here.

Anthropic’s financial strength further weakens the rationale for settlement. With a valuation projected to reach $170 billion the absurd notion that company is facing a “death knell” from litigation is undermined by the very recent funding rounds topping $10 billion, which proves investors do not consider any financial risks associated with this lawsuit. That should be compelling evidence that this settlement is not even a slap on the wrist.

Approving the settlement will allow Anthropic to sanitize its past misconduct without meaningful accountability, while leaving authors with a diluted remedy. They should have held out and gone to trial to preserve the only meaningful leverage the authors can exert.

Ultimately, should Judge Alsup reject the settlement only then would this preserve the possibility of a more principled resolution—one that reflects the true value of authors’ work and the gravity of the infringement. Remember, Anthropic (and others) acted knowingly and with impunity to copy these works: With a degree of effort and market knowledge, they sought out these pirate sites precisely because they could get the content for ‘free’.

Rejecting the settlement also avoids setting a precedent that could weaken future copyright claims against AI developers. But while the line outside AAP offices is figurative, I can bet Facebook attorneys are ordering champagne all round this week.

Authors deserve more than a rushed compromise shaped by corporate interests and vague processes. They deserve a legal framework that protects their rights in the age of machine learning. Until courts provide firmer guidance, the path forward should be cautious, deliberate, and above all, fair. This settlement is not that.

****

When the Google copyright case was in litigation, there was a lot of hyperventilation about the universe of 'orphan titles' which, in this highly referenced analysis, I suggested was overblown. We may find that the 500,000 works number cited in this agreement is over egged.

****

Jimmy tried to force Howard to settle the Sandpiper litigation for all the wrong reasons. It led to Howard's unfortunate demise.

Clarivate Reports 2Q results - Back on Track?

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Fri, 5 Sep 2025 01:45:00 -0400

Clarivate, the information services firm, reported second-quarter results that, while not dazzling, suggest a business regaining its footing. Revenues reached $621 million, and the adjusted EBITDA margin rose to a respectable 41% for the first half—up 500 basis points year-on-year. Organic annual contract value edged up by 1.3%, and recurring organic revenue grew by nearly 1%, buoyed by robust subscription renewals and the rollout of new offerings.

The headline net loss of $72 million was largely the result of non-cash impairment charges, and on an adjusted basis, net income stood at $123 million. The firm announced they will seek to return up to $100 million to shareholders via buybacks and reiterated its full-year free cash flow guidance of $340 million.

Strategically, Clarivate is leaning into its strengths. Its Academic & Government and Life Sciences & Healthcare segments showed momentum, aided by AI-driven innovation and fresh partnerships. The Intellectual Property division, long a laggard, returned to growth—thanks in part to a surge in AI-related patent filings, especially from China.

Challenges remain. Divestitures and a sluggish commercialization market continue to weigh but management remains positive, touting its Value Creation Plan and a revamped sales model. The company reaffirmed its 2025 outlook, projecting revenues between $2.28 billion and $2.40 billion, and adjusted EBITDA between $940 million and $1 billion.

In short, Clarivate is not yet sprinting—but it is walking with purpose.

*********

The following are some comments from the investor call transcript. These comments are about the previously announced switch from a book purchase to book subscription model which generated a lot of push back from librarians (and other business initiatives):

“If you turn to Slide 8, I'll provide an update on the VCP starting with the A&G segment. Our proactive business model optimization, coupled with decades of experience in delivering data and analytics solution to our clients has strategically positioned us to anticipate and adapt to current market dynamics. We are on track to discontinue transactional sales of digital collections and books over the next year. This shift away from transactional sale is increasing recurring revenue growth by transitioning some of the business to the new progress e-Books product and other content solution subscription. We are pleased with the early adoption with over 70 wins to date and hundreds of customers currently evaluating this new model.”

“Following this A&G strategy, A&G subscription revenue now constitutes 93% of the total segment revenue, excluding disposals, up from 79% in the prior year period. In the first half of 2025, we have achieved a 96% renewal rate in A&G. This is impressive results considering the macro backdrop characterized by a reduction in the U.S. federal agency contracts, increased constraints on higher education research funding and potential additional university budget cuts. It is also noteworthy that as at the end of July, 75% of global A&G subscription for the full year has successfully renewed. This is in line with last year -- last year's renewal pace. We continue to successfully invest in innovation across the A&G product portfolio with a focus on AI. We are very pleased by our success so far in product launches and customer adoption. More than 4,800 institutions have already adopted our AI tools to strengthen research support, increase operational efficiency and enhance student engagement.”

“We are also accelerating progress with next-generation Agentic AI solution. AI agents can independently play and execute multistep processes by interacting with user with users, data sources and tools. The expansion of our Agentic AI platform marks a significant milestone as we implement responsible Agentic AI to accelerate research and learning workflow. Our initial launch of the literature review agent in Web of Science exemplify this pioneering approach. The agent converse with researchers to understand their research goals, then customize a specific literature review scope and define the proper output. This personal interactive experience keeps the researcher in the center, which closely mimic working with human assistant.”

“With regards to the content, as I mentioned in my discussion, we were forward looking, taking away the discretionary onetime expenditure, and this served us very, very well these days, and we see the uptake of customers who were initially complaining about taking away the onetime purchases are now buying more and more of our subscription businesses, the PQ ebook, the PQ Digital Collection, which actually serves them very, very well in this in this kind of economic climate. So we are pretty confident that going ahead, we will continue to see a good and decent renewal rates and uptake of the different A&G offering.”

Wiley Full Year Results Show Margin Improvement

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Thu, 28 Aug 2025 08:49:00 -0400

For Wiley's Fiscal Year 2025 (ending April 30, 2025), the fourth quarter reported revenue was $443 million, essentially flat year-over-year when adjusted for divestitures, while full-year adjusted revenue was also essentially even. The company saw growth in its Research and Learning segments, particularly in academic courseware and AI licensing, but experienced softness in professional sales due to a weak retail market. Full-year adjusted EBITDA grew to $369 million (at constant currency), driven by cost savings and revenue performance in Research.

Wiley continues to experience robust growth across its Research and Learning segments with recurring revenue performing well, supported by strong research submissions and output. The India, Brazil, and China markets are showing significant revenue improvement and the business unit is seeing double-digit submission increases from the UK, France, Italy, and Canada. The Japan and the U.S. markets are contributing with high single-digit growth.

Open access publishing remains a key strategic initiative, with double-digit growth over the year. AS noted in previous announcements, Wiley has made notable strides in AI licensing, securing its third major AI model training customer in Q4 and generating $40 million in AI-related revenue for FY25. The company is expanding its corporate sector footprint through vertical-specific licensing agreements with technology, pharmaceutical, chemical companies, and a space agency. Strategic partnerships with Amazon Web Services and Perplexity are enhancing Wiley’s capabilities in research API development and AI integration.

In Higher Education, Wiley is seeing strong performance in digital and AI-driven offerings. AI licensing revenue reached $29 million, up 27% year-over-year, supported by both Academic and Professional backlists. Inclusive Access programs show strong double-digit growth and academic digital content and courseware are growing steadily.

Wiley is also innovating in assessments and team development, launching new products that combine personality models with training solutions. The company believes their thought leadership in AI development, research integrity, and accessibility positions them well for growth and an expanded presence in both the academic and corporate sectors.

More information from their press release:

FISCAL 2025 HIGHLIGHTS

GAAP performance vs. prior year: Operating Income of $221 million vs. $52 million and Diluted Earnings Per Share (EPS) of $1.53 vs. ($3.65)
Exceeded Adjusted EPS guidance, delivered at top end of range for Adjusted EBITDA margin, and achieved Free Cash Flow outlook
Delivered Revenue and Adjusted EBITDA margin growth in both Research and Learning segments
Achieved Adjusted Operating Margin expansion of 300 basis points
Executed AI content licensing project this quarter with a third large tech company; $40 million in total AI licensing revenue realized in Fiscal 2025 compared to $23 million in Fiscal 2024
Drove a 34% increase in share repurchases and raised dividend for 31 ^st consecutive year

Ava Gardner Beat Artie Shaw at Chess: Ava The Secret Conversations

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:19:00 -0400

Elizabeth McGovern, Photo by Jeff Lorch

Ava Gardiner didn't like a woman to swear. She fucking hated it. In Ava: The Secret Conversations Elizabeth McGovern embodies the life of Ava Gardner as her life story is coaxed out of her by writer Peter Evans (played by Aaron Costa Ganis) over the course of several weeks in 1988. Evans is badgered into getting the salacious out of Ava by an audio only Ed Victor who notes frequently that no less than Dick Snyder himself is paying attention to the writers' efforts.

The play opens with a 2am call to Evans by Gardner where she seems to be contemplating suicide - and although this doesn't come up again in the play, the reason she has entertained the idea of selling her story at all is that she needs the money for her mortgage and is still suffering from the effects of a stroke. She's not in a good place, and she will question some of her life choices during these conversations. McGovern plays the role with her left arm mostly hanging limp except when the scenes fall back to reenact past events. As these events unfold the stage scene is boosted by the use of video images of past husbands Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra. Ganis will later break out into song.

It is Frank, that Synder desperately wants in this book and he presses, via the voice of Ed Victor, Evans to get the anatomical bits out of Ava. At the time, Sinatra had recently been the victim of the Kitty Kelly bio and Snyder knows how much anything about Sinatra would drive sales of this book. Even without Frank - who does feature, there is much to consider here about Ava Gardner: McGovern and Ganis are galvanizing in their respective roles. The set which represents Gardner's apartment in London is both sitting room and bedroom - the bed being obviously symbolic, is very well constructed and the multimedia images add significant context to the story.

As it turned out, Gardner threw Evans out before the manuscript was finished and it was only after she died in 1990 that Evans revisited the material and with the approval of the Gardner family the work was published. From this book, the play was conceived by McGovern and premiered at the Geffen Playhouse in 2023.

And yes, on the first occasion she did beat Artie Shaw at chess even though he was an expert. Go see it.

*****

For those who don't know, Dick Synder was the long time CEO of Simon & Schuster and by accounts liked nothing better than his executive team to be in open combat with each other. Ed Victor, was a 'super-agent' sometimes known for influencing the telling of the story.

Building an Intelligent Supply Chain in Publishing

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Thu, 21 Aug 2025 13:29:00 -0400

The Book Industry Study Group is embarking on a Book Publishing Next initiative to rethink the publishing supply chain/ecosystem. See more at https://lnkd.in/eqemKjMW

It's a long time coming: Here is my thoughts on this from 2002!
https://lnkd.in/et3F6wPS

Building an Intelligent Supply Chain Frankfurt Supply Chain Interests Group 2002 from Michael Cairns

The Satire Bites...and Leaves a Mark

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 12:01:00 -0400

Don't we just love watching The Daily Show and Late Night and the skewering which takes place all in the name of fun? Sometimes this satirical "fake news" can cascade into the scatological - particularly The Daily Show commentaries, and new research published in The Journal of Experimental Psychology (and available via PsycNet subscription) demonstrates that satire can pack a punch and will frequently result in the dehumanization of the target.

Long considered the harmless cousin of criticism, satire may in fact be the more dangerous sibling. A recent study entitled Softening the blow or sharpening the blade: Examining the reputational effects of satire. by Hooria Jazaieri (Santa Clara University) and Derek D. Rucker (Northwestern University) suggests that satire, despite its comedic veneer, inflicts greater reputational damage than direct critique. The authors set out to test two hypotheses: Does satire soften the blow or does it negatively sharpen the impact. Their findings favor the latter.

The study examined how satirical content—memes, videos, and commentary—affects public perception. Participants exposed to satirical portrayals of individuals, both real and fictional, consistently rated those individuals less favorably than those exposed to straightforward criticism. Satire, it turns out, does not merely mock—it dehumanizes.

Read a profile of Stewart in a recent Poynter article - When Satire became trusted news.

A linguistic analysis of more than 100,000 YouTube comments revealed that satire prompted viewers to use language that stripped its targets of human qualities. This dehumanization, measured using the Mind Attribution Scale, was found to mediate the reputational harm. In short, satire makes people seem less capable of thought, emotion and agency—and thus less worthy of respect. (Note: The Mind Attribution Scale (MAS) is a questionnaire designed to measure the extent to which individuals attribute mental states, specifically agency and experience to others).

To determine whether there exists a counter to this impact, the researchers tested a psychological intervention: asking participants to imagine a pleasant interaction with the satirical target. This brief exercise, lasting no more than two minutes, significantly reduced the reputational damage. The imagined contact restored perceptions of the target’s humanity, blunting satire’s sting.

So, consider this 'mission accomplished?' In an age where satire proliferates across social media and entertainment platforms, its reputational consequences are often overlooked - although, some could also argue undermining reputationally and otherwise is the objective. The researchers argue that far from being a benign form of commentary, satire is a potent weapon—one that shapes public opinion more effectively than direct criticism. The ethical ramifications are considerable, particularly when satire targets individuals unable to respond or defend themselves.

Only Fools and Horses: How one of the funniest scenes got done

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:57:00 -0400

This week on British morning television, Sir David Jason retold the story about producing one of UK TV's funniest scenes. F&H is one of the most loved UK shows and was rumored to be in consideration for a US version - which thankfully never happened.

And here is the full clip from YouTube.

Do AI Tools Harken the Death of the Academic Subscription?

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 10:27:00 -0400

The late show with Steven Colbert is cancelled and, like me you may be spluttering with anger over another CBS sell out, but the reason why this show was cancelled had more to do with the combination of money, demographics and highlight reels and less the thin skinned dear leader.

When Johnny Carson was at the height of popularity he regularly pulled in 11million viewers per night and if you missed the show, you were out of luck at the water cooler the next day. In 1975, Carson’s show made about $300MM in today’s dollars. Today Colbert brings in just about 2MM viewers and according to CBS losses $40MM a year. As if that’s not enough, Colbert also has demographics and the highlight reel working against him.

Today’s younger audiences are not predisposed to appointment TV and do not watch Colbert at 11:30 each night. They may, however, see the highlight reels in any number of places but the joke is on the content provider. These highlights aren’t monetized, and it is now much too late to fix what seemed like a really good idea at the time: to break the show into funny bits to drive traffic to watch the whole thing. That model, now proven broken, only benefits Google, Yahoo, Ticktock and other ‘channels.

In academic publishing we may be on track to make a similar catastrophic mistake in allowing our content to be programmatically snipped into ‘key takeaways’ and ‘two paragraph summaries’. As AI tools fast become standard in search, traffic to the full text of research articles is showing the early signs of a significant dislocation. Traffic counted as ‘inquiries’ – generated by AI – is increasing. Pretty soon, just like Colbert all the best jokes are going to be free before the show is even over and these jokes will not have driven more traffic to the full show. Replace ‘joke’ with ‘research’ and publishers will soon have some explaining to do to the librarian about the collapse of full text retrievals.

It may be impossible to change the dynamic, but publishers must consider collecting transaction fees from these search partners for each of the AI ‘inquiries’ they perform. Otherwise, I think this may mark the beginning of the end for the subscription model. Contributing to this is the march of consumer preference, which as in the Colbert example above, young researchers are not methodically collecting 200 research articles and working through each: No, they use AI on 1000 instead and generate summaries, cross references and a draft paper within a fraction of the time. Publishers’ value add becomes frayed in this scenario.

It may seem strange to draw comparisons between a television show and academic research, but the changing dynamics are similar. Consider these and how they might apply to academic publishing,

Pressure on legacy media: Colbert ad revenue dropped $20MM between 2024 and 2025 while viewership in the key 18-49 age bracket fell by 20%. Academic researchers 18 – 49 are our key demographic and they be different in their behavior

Market fragmentation and platform shifts: Colbert’s monologues and segments go viral online but these don’t generate revenue like traditional TV ads. Without ads (read subscription) there is no economic model.
Decline of linear viewing: User behavior has radically changed in the past 20 years and media consumption is far more driven by on-demand and at-convenience such that the consumer of media (read “researcher”) is in charge.
Strategic realignment: Just like CBS and other media companies are realigning so are academic publishers and technology companies forming alliances which may redefine how academic publishers create value. There is likely to be more consolidation rather than less in academic publishing as strategic realignment takes shape.

Publishers need to be very wary of how they work with AI companies and search companies with embedded AI tools. On the surface, this functionality benefits the researcher and at least in the short term makes publishers seem tech savvy and accommodating of researcher needs. However, if researchers can retrieve data, information and research with significantly less effort the value proposition – regardless how cynical that sounds – for the publisher begins to erode.

With some of the strongest media properties such as Netflix, Apple + and HBO now protected behind subscription walls (in contrast to legacy television), it would be ironic if academic publishers which started from this place of significant strength gave it all away by letting in the AI Trojan horse. Many publishers may also believe they have 'channel' strength when in fact they may have more 'brand' strength where researchers form stronger bonds with specific journal titles. Behind the paywall, perhaps more can be done to foster this brand strength and thus make the 'channel' even stronger. With respect to working with AI and LLMs , one of my colleagues said the other day, “I don’t know if I am shooting myself in the foot or the face”.

If you have your own subscription platform, keep pace with AI functionality, engage in a broader manner with users but don’t let the horse in.

Fan Fiction: What Writes Better, Simple or Complex? (From PsycArticles)

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 08:45:00 -0400

I am reading a short book on "Simplicity" and the relationship between simplicity and complexity and thought I would also do some research on PsycNet to see what recent research existed. As it happened I found the following article on Fan Fiction (topically of interest). Turns out the more complex the fan fiction story the better it is reviewed and read!

The Diamonds and the Dross: A Quantitative Exploration of Integrative Complexity in Fan fiction by Hayley McCullough investigates the psychological and linguistic characteristics of fan fiction by analyzing its integrative complexity, measuring how well a text recognizes and integrates multiple perspectives. McCullough's research compared 45 popular and 45 unpopular fan fictions from the Archive of Our Own (AO3) platform, using "Hits" (views) and "Kudos" (community approval) as metrics for popularity.

Contrary to expectation, that popular fan fiction would show lower complexity—a trend observed in other pop culture domains like film—the study revealed that popular fan fiction consistently scored higher in all forms of complexity across various categories. The finding suggests fan fiction readers prefer more thought provoking and nuanced narratives, which was found regardless whether popularity was measured by views or community approval. The researchers concluded that there is a robust preference for complexity in fan fiction.

The article proposes several explanations for this unexpected trend:

The text-based nature of fan fiction may encourage more complex storytelling (in the absence of visual cues).
Fan fiction's role as a form of cultural critique. This resonates with the idea that content, including (fan) fiction, often provides insight into complex real-world issues.
A desire among fans to explore underrepresented identities and perspectives. This can be seen in popular characters like Stieg Larsson's Lisbeth Salander, who was potentially inspired by a "grown-up Pippi Longstocking" and represents a "dysfunctional girl" who nonetheless directs her own destiny, hinting at the appeal of complex and non-traditional identities.

I have explored the fan fiction 'marketplace' a few times on PND and the researchers also reference well known examples including Harry Potter fan websites such as MuggleNet and The Leaky Cauldron where fans move the Harry Potter story in new directions and different directions (sometimes, not always supported by Rowling). Many of these popular fan sites provide vigorous and unedited feedback to authors which, while potentially intimidating, creates an environment which encourages quality.

The Implications for Publishers: Publishers are encouraged to "engage deeply where it matters" within fan fiction communities rather than just marketing to them as readers rather than content creators. CompletelyNovel.com uses reviews, ratings, and sales data from the social web to help authors prove market viability, demonstrate how community feedback can influence success, and model of "post-publication peer review," where readers assess content quality, aligns with the community-driven nature of fan fiction communities. The research conducted suggests that platforms and content communities that filter for complex or nuanced narratives would be highly valued by readers and creators.

In summary, successful fan fiction is likely to be more complex suggesting a strong appetite for intellectually stimulating content, in turn suggesting commercialization should emphasize deeper more thought provoking story lines, character development and cultural complexity. As the authors note in their closing that there may be more to do to understand fan fiction and the implications of their research:

As previously discussed, fan fiction as a research topic has been a largely ignored by researchers and scholars outside the qualitative humanities’ scholarship, and only a few studies focus specifically on examining and understanding the underlining psychology of fan fiction, most notably Vinney and Dill-Shackleford (2018). Alongside that article, these studies begin filling this particularly research gap and provides a strong foundation going forward. It is the responsibility of future researcher to continue filling the research gap and build up these studies.

Towards an AI Governance Stucture for Business

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 08:30:00 -0400

A recently published article in Artificial Intelligence and Organizational Strategy: Ethical and Governance Implications by Larry W. Norton (Consulting Psychology Journal, Vol 77(2), Jun 2025, 131-141) addresses not just how AI will fundamentally redefine work but how we must implement governance and take management responsibility to manage outcomes – both intended and unintended.

As Norton’s research makes clear, AI is not just about automation; AI is shaping strategy, driving innovation, and changing the definition of everything from customer value to product development. Referencing several AI use cases including CapitalOne and Mayo Clinic, Norton proffers that if you’re not thinking about AI strategically, you’re already behind.

There are real risks—algorithmic bias, data privacy, even unintended societal harm and the article is clear we need to be smart about how AI is deployed, balancing the pursuit of profit with responsible implementation, starting with low-risk, high-impact use cases and scaling up responsibly as capabilities mature. Even a casual awareness of how AI has dominated recent business and economic commentary would make clear that we must be smart about how AI is deployed. This is where Norton offers a formula – based on research – for corporations to manage their AI implementations and make governance not simply a ‘nice to have’ but a business imperative.

The author lays out what effective AI governance looks like: everything from ensuring data quality to having clear stakeholder accountability, regulatory compliance and crucially, ethical oversight. Norton references established frameworks like the National Institute of Standards andTechnology’s AI Risk Management Framework and the IEEE’s Ethically Aligned Design, stressing transparency, explainability, fairness, and accountability in AI systems.

Norton suggests three key recommendations:

treat AI risk mitigation as a competitive differentiator,
tailor governance models to the ethical and business risks of specific AI applications,
start small and scale responsibly

He also calls for increased AI literacy among consultants and organizational leaders, arguing that understanding AI’s capabilities and limitations are essential for ethical and effective deployment and significantly that AI oversight needs to go right up to board level particularly in firms where AI development and/or implementation is central to the business strategy.

Find this article: Consulting Psychology Journal, Vol 77(2), Jun 2025, 131-141

A sample of further PsycArticle readings on the intersection of psychology and Artificial Intelligence include:

More information about APA products and subscription options is located here.

DC US Attorney Sends Query Letters to Academic Publishers about Research Practices

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 11:22:00 -0400

Given our current political environment this outreach by the US Attorney for DC has been widely anticipated by many in the academic publishing community. Unknown is how many similar letters have been sent (if any). What this requests suggests is that, in the view of the DC court, publishers have been tipping the scales in the conduct and publication of research such that they have a bias contrary to the views and assumptions of the republican administration and/or those on the right generally.

On the surface, there isn't much illegitimate about these questions: they are valid; however, the purpose for asking them and the interpretation of the answers is where academic and association publishers may have legitimate concerns.

Federal Reserve Report on High Ed Institution Viability - It is Bleak.

noreply@blogger.com (MC) — Tue, 8 Apr 2025 17:20:00 -0400

There has been a decades long (at least) discussion about the viability of a certain segment of the higher education institution market and assumptions there would be a significant contraction in the number of schools. Now, things may have taken a turn for the worst. This report by the Federal Reserve (published before trumpocomics) anticipated an acceleration in the closure of 'at risk' schools. These are primary schools with small enrollments, a dependency on tuition for revenue and with limited or no endowment.

I used Copilot to create this summary:

Enrollment Declines and Financial Distress: The report highlights that enrollment declines, particularly due to the "demographic cliff" and the COVID-19 pandemic, are significant predictors of financial distress and college closures. Enrollment fell by 15% from 2010 to 2021, and the trend may continue, exacerbating financial challenges for institutions.
Predictive Models for College Closures: The authors developed predictive models using machine learning techniques, which significantly outperform traditional linear probability models and existing federal accountability metrics. The preferred model, using the XGBoost algorithm, showed an 84% accuracy rate in predicting closures within three years for the riskiest institutions.
Impact of Missing Data: A high degree of missing data among colleges that eventually close is a key impediment to identifying at-risk institutions. Machine learning models, particularly XGBoost, are more effective at handling incomplete data and improving predictive accuracy compared to traditional methods.
Financial Metrics and Predictive Accuracy: Key financial metrics such as operating margin, debt levels, and changes in revenue and expenses are strong predictors of college closures. The machine learning models demonstrated that ratios of financial metrics and changes in these metrics are more important than absolute levels for predicting closures.
Future Closure Predictions: Simulations based on the predictive models suggest that the demographic cliff could significantly increase annual college closures. Under worst-case scenarios, there could be up to 80 additional closures annually, affecting over 100,000 students and 20,880 staff members, highlighting the potential widespread impact on local communities and economies.

According to Best Colleges, over 75 institutions have closed, merged or announced closure since the start of COVID and they estimate this had impacted almost 50,000 students.

From the report:

These financial pressures on higher education have elevated financial distress — up to and including closures — as a major higher education policy issue. While there have been predictions of a wave of closures for the last decade (e.g., Eide, 2018; Horn, 2018), most colleges survived the pandemic thanks to timely federal support and emergency actions taken to freeze or reduce personnel costs (Natow, 2021). However, the withdrawal of pandemic-era federal funding, along with existing stressors, likely resulted in an increase in closures during 2023 (Sanchez, 2024) and into 2024. There has also been a wave of colleges declaring financial exigency, eliminating academic programs and employees in an effort to cut costs and to avoid potential closures (Ambrose & Nietzel, 2024). Even flagship universities such as West Virginia University and Pennsylvania State University have pursued sizable reductions in the number of academic programs as they face budget deficits (Burke, 2024; Povich, 2023).

Unmentioned in this report is the negative impact of international students which typically pay much higher tuition fees. While international students may not be a target cohort for the schools in this 'at risk' group it is possible that an overall decrease in international students could expand this 'at risk' group (make it larger). Additionally, smaller schools often rent out their campus to foreign student programs for English and cultural programs during summer recess but it is entirely possible that these programs will dry up if they haven't already done so. The forecast may be bleak.