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

342 points by dorfsmay 9y ago

unbearded 9y ago
In Brazil, federal, state and some local governments publish what is called "Diário Oficial". It's a daily ledger of official hirings, firings, payments, votes on legislative chambers and even criminal indictments. The Brazilian Congress also post all the laws and amendments proposed and approved on its website http://www2.camara.leg.br/ http://www2.camara.leg.br/. While AI is no solution for corruption, it could create a more transparent system with a lot more accountability highlighting the potential misuse of money. Actually, even without sophisticated technology, whoever decides to read the free and available content, will quickly find many things that jump the eyes. For instance, I remember seeing that my city, under the new mayor, was paying for school buses while the school was off, in the month of January and three times the amount the previous administration used to pay (while kids were in school). My city also had even a helicopter for the local security force, which was not actually police and was not able to even carry guns. The helicopter was paid, faithfull, for many years. But seen in public only once, in a parade. At the time (many years ago), I tipped newspapers and nobody cared. A few years ago I created a simple script that to download all the public available law proposals from the Congress (https://github.com/pablomelo/baixa_camara https://github.com/pablomelo/baixa_camara) and downloaded 300GB of data. I wanted to create an app where voters could see where and what was the allegiance of their representatives (In Brazil there's no district division and a candidate for Congress can get votes from anywhere in the state. While it prevent's gerrymandering, it also allows politicians to have little commitment to their constituents).
vadimberman 9y ago
Very interesting. I heard of Benford's law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Accounting_fraud_detection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Accounting_fra...) that is used to detect accounting fraud. Are there other known mathematical models to detect fraud?
vit05 9y ago
Some people are missing the point. The project does not have the idea of seeking congressmen who spend a lot on their meals. Of course, that could help them spend a little less. But the idea is to find irregularities. That is, a congressman who says he had lunch at such a restaurant, but by analyzing the invoice and the address we find that this restaurant never existed. Or a gas station that does not really work anymore. This is very common. It is not an analysis of what they do with their wages. These congressmen receive compensation beyond their wages to spend when working in their regions. This compensation has a value of four to five times more than their salary.
dorfsmay 9y ago
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 it deserve more visibility, and that we should leverage it and similar project in other countries.
- spacial 9y ago
  Sure, I'm following the project on Telegram (english only group): https://telegram.me/joinchat/AKDWc0BDOqriD1n-mntRBg https://telegram.me/joinchat/AKDWc0BDOqriD1n-mntRBg About: https://serenata.ai/en/faq/ https://serenata.ai/en/faq/
- DavidHm 9y ago
  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?
  - ravishi 9y ago
    Having worked in an innovation lab [1] that exists inside the brazilian house of representatives, I may be able to try to answer your question: It's not an easy answer, things are not black and white. I think a great deal of the politicians don't give a shit about such initiatives, don't even understand them and their implications. But there's a great deal of people working close to theses politicians who keep pushing for a better future. I don't know them all because I have been mostly focused on the tech aspect of it, but you could reach out for some of them and they would guide you through their network. For instance, Cristiano Ferri [2] has been doing a great work in this area. He was the head of the Laboratorio Hacker while I was there, and is very connected both to the politicans and the community. [1] http://labhackercd.leg.br/ http://labhackercd.leg.br/ - Unfortunately HTTP, lol. I think it used to be served through SSL, but can't really remember. [2] https://twitter.com/cristianofaria https://twitter.com/cristianofaria
rambossa 9y ago
the twitter account: https://twitter.com/RosieDaSerenata https://twitter.com/RosieDaSerenata
amarant 9y ago
this is awesome! having lived in Brazil I can testify that the country really need this (if such testimony is necessary). However I do think other countries would benefit too! I've long wished for AI governance, and this is a great step in the direction I imagine that working. I for one welcome our new robot overlords ;)
- andrepd 9y ago
  >I've long wished for AI governance Someone has to write the algorithms, and something tells me it's not going to be the 99%.
  - zaarn 9y ago
    It probably wouldn't end in a Skynet-type situation. Or rather, that is very very unlikely. Though on the remote possibility that this does happen; I welcome our new AI overlords!
  - rbanffy 9y ago
    I don't know who'll build it, but any such AI should be named after Stafford Beer's Cybersyn.
personlurking 9y ago
Slightly off-topic, but this is what a Serenata de Amor is in Brazil (it's a bonbon and it's very good, IMHO): https://i.imgur.com/tQZ0JHF.jpg https://i.imgur.com/tQZ0JHF.jpg
- oblio 9y ago
  I assume it's also "love song" (well, "love serenade", to be a bit more accurate) :)
  - csjr 9y ago
    You are correct! https://serenata.ai/en/faq/ https://serenata.ai/en/faq/
- neves 9y ago
  YMMV: It is overwhelming sweet.
dovyski 9y ago
This is such a cool project that deserves some attention. As a side note: one of the project members was interviewed on The Changelog[0]. The interview presents many topics related to the project, e.g. technology, community, challenges. [0] https://changelog.com/podcast/268 https://changelog.com/podcast/268
- dorfsmay 9y ago
  Thanks. I was was actually about to post this. Fábio Rehm gives a really good overview of the project in that podcast. This is how I actually discovered that project.
  - fgrehm 9y ago
    Oh, It wasn't me :) I just suggested the podcast and Eduardo Cuducos (@cuducos) talked about it there =}
    - dorfsmay 9y ago
      Oh! I discovered it from one of your tweet / blog! Thanks for the correction.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gomox 9y ago
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 this looks like noise. Is someone able to find a more substantial report?
- prophet_ 9y ago
  It would also be handy if we had a short description of the suspicion in the tweet message itself.
- yelloweyes 9y ago
  The average brazilian does not spend 50 BRL on a meal. Why should a public servant be able to? These guys are living like kings when they are mostly blowhards with very few skills other than being able to manipulate poor people into voting for them.
  - gomox 9y ago
    Well, a congressman is hardly an average citizen. I don't necessarily disagree with your point but that doesn't necessarily mean that spending 15 USD on lunch is a sign of corruption. Brazil is in many ways similar to Argentina (where I live) and the average voter doesn't value austerity much. Our current president is the son of one of the richest businessman in the country, and is a millionaire himself.
- lenilsonjr 9y ago
  Take this one, for instance: https://jarbas.serenata.ai/layers/#/documentId/6185347 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 dig deeper into other reports, you can also see congresspeople spending public money in sex shops and clubs, for instance (https://twitter.com/cuducos/status/840882495868530688 https://twitter.com/cuducos/status/840882495868530688).
soroso 9y ago
Serenata de Amor is a brazilian candy: https://hibrazilmarket.com/products/garoto-serenata-de-amor-19g-1 https://hibrazilmarket.com/products/garoto-serenata-de-amor-... From their faq: https://serenata.ai/en/faq/ https://serenata.ai/en/faq/ 1 - We were inspired by the Toblerone Affair, a case in which a Swedish politician was pushed to resign after being caught paying simple Toblerone chocolate bar with public money. That’s what we want to do: empower social control of public expenditures including values as low as a chocolate bar.
JackuB 9y ago
Slightly OT but combination of gov and data kind of reminded me of Project Cybersyn. If you like this project, you might find reading about Cybersyn interesting http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machine http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machin...
- finnh 9y ago
  Also: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/
ggambetta 9y ago
FWIW, it is named after an immensely popular bonbon from Brazil: https://www.garoto.com.br/produtos/detalhes/191 https://www.garoto.com.br/produtos/detalhes/191
lbrito 9y ago
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 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.
- SiempreViernes 9y ago
  It's a bit bland compared to what Eduardo Cunha could pull in, but then Cunha didn't get his money by sending a receipt to be reimbursed. The problem is more that this sort of data isn't likely to find the serious corruption, it'll likely just find pedestrian examples of misuse of public funds.
- notahacker 9y ago
  Yeah, as well intentioned as it is, the real corruption is people taking huge backhanders for stuff, and diverting government funds to their family, not people forgetting to name the members of staff they had lunch with on paperwork, getting the date wrong on the paperwork or buying stuff in both the origin city and destination city of their flights. And the real corruption generally doesn't involve expense receipts The UK had a similar issue which started off with looking at very specific instances where politicians made hundreds of thousands of pounds from fraudulent representations for expenses associated with a London "second home" and ended up ranking MPs by office expenses they were very much entitled to claim and highlighting legitimate claims for snacks just because they were funny. Trouble is, the basic conclusion was "all MPs are corrupt" which actually makes it harder to grab public attention over more serious conflicts of interest.
- forinti 9y ago
  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.
motohagiography 9y ago
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 an upper end restaurant will %90 draw political consequences from an AI, with a high degree of uncertainty in the cost to fight it, vs. accepting the hosts generosity, with a sub-%5 chance of consequences occurring like having to pay your share, or a minor sanction some years into the future. I'd argue most politicians necessarily make risk and cost/benefit calculations before ethical signalling ones, and the indiscriminate application of rules in this case creates inverted incentives that demoralize the situation, and will cause them to start accepting insignificant bribes. The economic value of "AI" is mostly to obfuscate and symbolically defray the chain of individual human accountability. While this may be working for the "good guys," in the public interest, 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. It's fascinating and cool, but it's also a bit disingenuous to accept magical pretexts and other ethical proxies because we perceive them to be "on our side."
- yelloweyes 9y ago
  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.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- SiempreViernes 9y ago
  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.
slededit 9y ago
Why is a fishing expedition OK in this scenario but not in normal criminal cases? It's not a value judgement. I think it's an interesting question.
forinti 9y ago
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).
- pedro_hab 9y ago
  hmn, do you mean corruption is not as bad as income inequality? Because one can argue that corruption foster inequality, where government workers steal money from the people, they give favor to rich "friends" making them richer. I can guess your solution is to give more power to the state to solve the inequality issue, which actually worsens the corruption caused inequality.
  - forinti 9y ago
    I don't think cutting corruption to zero would impact people's lives as much as having a progressive tax system. If you look at overall tax burden, the lowest tier pays close to 50%. The highest tier, a bit over 25%. Trump tried to lower corporate tax to 15% and not even his party thought it was reasonable. In Brazil, corporate tax is zero. One of the richest people in Brazil, Steinbruch, was caught trying to evade an estate tax of only 4%, when food is taxed at near 20%.
    - cjalmeida 9y ago
      You're wrong. In Brazil corporate income is taxed at 34,5% (base 15%, plus additional 10% for medium to big sized companies, plus 9,5% for social security) That amount is on par or above OCDE counties, and much higher than most developing nations. What we don't have is dividend tax. Unlike corporate tax that one must pay every quarter, you only pay dividend tax if you give money back to shareholders, so reinvestments are not taxed. Usually countries balance income and dividend taxes so the government has a stable income but doesn't penalize investments as much. In Brazil, we opted for screwing investors. Not to mention that companies pay an enormous amount of money in combined sales taxes. A manufacturing company usually pays 17% for state sales tax, another 9,35% federal social security, and sometimes an extra 5% to 15% for "luxury good" (like shampoo). So, again, you're completely wrong and companies (read YOU) pay a hell lot of taxes in Brazil. Source: I worked in investment analysis in another life.
coliveira 9y ago
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.
- epx 9y ago
  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?)
  - coliveira 9y ago
    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-ab04428977f9 https://www.ft.com/content/a9e193de-2044-11e7-a454-ab0442897...
    - epx 9y ago
      I am not naive, and you should not be naive to the "bad bad foreigners" mantra that is tailored for the reptilian brain layer of the voters, either.
      - badosu 9y ago
        Dude, this hapoens and is not as negligible as you imply. Sure, there's an agenda to appeal for a certain rhetoric, but you must accept some facts.
  - marcosdumay 9y ago
    > The other excuse was that "corruption is small compared to the GDP". Well, we already know as a fact that at least in Brazil the excuse is wrong. There's a long time that I don't hear it, so I guess people can't even deny anymore. The new excuse is "but look, the people that inherited the power do it too, and nothing is happening to them". So, back to good old whataboutism.
wallflower 9y ago
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Dessalines
- dashoffset 9y ago
  > countries where corruption is endemic and part of the culture almost always started out as "extraction colonies". This is an overly simplified, albeit correct, way to explain it.
  - wallflower 9y ago
    In case you see this, can you please point me to any resources /books on a non-overly simplified way to explain the roots of corruption in Latin American countries?
    - dashoffset 9y ago
      I would start with "The causes of corruption" by Daniel Treisman. It isn't specific to Latin America, though. In summary, Treisman will show that many factors appear to have an influence on whether a country is more or less corrupt. The colonial past of Latin American countries helps to explain part of it, but it doesn't appear to be a causa sine qua non.
      - wallflower 9y ago
        Thank you! I have started reading the paper, and it is interesting to read how the author lays out his hypotheses. Most intriguing is the link between how judicial systems that were setup to support the king may tend to be more corrupt since they were literally robbing property/money from his subjects. On the other side, the British system relies on judicial precedents and process, helping ensure a more fair trial between the government and property owners/business people. https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/131389/original/Treisman2000.pdf https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/131389/original/Treisman2...
diego_moita 9y ago
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 you allow me to explain such disease bluntly, here it is: the Brazilian voter is astonishingly stupid. Brazilians vote very, very badly. Politicians with a long and explicit history of corruption are routinely re-elected and remain very popular (e.g: Maluf, Sarney, Calheiros, Collor, Lula and almost everyone in the 3 big parties: PMDB, PSDB and PT). There is even a standard justification for this behaviour, people say "rouba mas faz" (he steals but gets things done). Like in most of the 3rd world and countries with authoritarian history, the overwhelming majority of the Brazilian voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. I bet Turkey, Russia, Poland and Hungary are the same. Democracy goes far beyond the formal institutions, you need a civic heart, a belief within every citizen's mind that the public good matters a lot and affects everyone. In most 3rd world countries people just don't "get" this.
- ymgch 9y ago
  Another 'vira-lata' here. Thinking about braziL causes me nausea. Hope that 'country' be better but I really doubt.
- Apaec 9y ago
  In Peru we have an equivalent phrase for "rouba mas faz", the "roba pero hace obra", also a popular justification that got a corrupt major elected for Lima, even when major media outlets showed proofs of corruption.
- TremendousJudge 9y ago
  We're talking about a country that gave 1.35 million votes to a literal clown [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiririca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiririca
  - notahacker 9y ago

342 points by dorfsmay 9y ago

In Brazil, federal, state and some local governments publish what is called "Diário Oficial". It's a daily ledger of official hirings, firings, payments, votes on legislative chambers and even criminal indictments. The Brazilian Congress also post all the laws and amendments proposed and approved on its website http://www2.camara.leg.br/ http://www2.camara.leg.br/. While AI is no solution for corruption, it could create a more transparent system with a lot more accountability highlighting the potential misuse of money. Actually, even without sophisticated technology, whoever decides to read the free and available content, will quickly find many things that jump the eyes. For instance, I remember seeing that my city, under the new mayor, was paying for school buses while the school was off, in the month of January and three times the amount the previous administration used to pay (while kids were in school). My city also had even a helicopter for the local security force, which was not actually police and was not able to even carry guns. The helicopter was paid, faithfull, for many years. But seen in public only once, in a parade. At the time (many years ago), I tipped newspapers and nobody cared. A few years ago I created a simple script that to download all the public available law proposals from the Congress (https://github.com/pablomelo/baixa_camara https://github.com/pablomelo/baixa_camara) and downloaded 300GB of data. I wanted to create an app where voters could see where and what was the allegiance of their representatives (In Brazil there's no district division and a candidate for Congress can get votes from anywhere in the state. While it prevent's gerrymandering, it also allows politicians to have little commitment to their constituents).

vadimberman 9y ago

Very interesting. I heard of Benford's law (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Accounting_fraud_detection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benford%27s_law#Accounting_fra...) that is used to detect accounting fraud. Are there other known mathematical models to detect fraud?

vit05 9y ago

Some people are missing the point. The project does not have the idea of seeking congressmen who spend a lot on their meals. Of course, that could help them spend a little less. But the idea is to find irregularities. That is, a congressman who says he had lunch at such a restaurant, but by analyzing the invoice and the address we find that this restaurant never existed. Or a gas station that does not really work anymore. This is very common. It is not an analysis of what they do with their wages. These congressmen receive compensation beyond their wages to spend when working in their regions. This compensation has a value of four to five times more than their salary.

dorfsmay 9y ago

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 it deserve more visibility, and that we should leverage it and similar project in other countries.

spacial 9y ago
Sure, I'm following the project on Telegram (english only group): https://telegram.me/joinchat/AKDWc0BDOqriD1n-mntRBg https://telegram.me/joinchat/AKDWc0BDOqriD1n-mntRBg About: https://serenata.ai/en/faq/ https://serenata.ai/en/faq/
DavidHm 9y ago
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?
- ravishi 9y ago
  Having worked in an innovation lab [1] that exists inside the brazilian house of representatives, I may be able to try to answer your question: It's not an easy answer, things are not black and white. I think a great deal of the politicians don't give a shit about such initiatives, don't even understand them and their implications. But there's a great deal of people working close to theses politicians who keep pushing for a better future. I don't know them all because I have been mostly focused on the tech aspect of it, but you could reach out for some of them and they would guide you through their network. For instance, Cristiano Ferri [2] has been doing a great work in this area. He was the head of the Laboratorio Hacker while I was there, and is very connected both to the politicans and the community. [1] http://labhackercd.leg.br/ http://labhackercd.leg.br/ - Unfortunately HTTP, lol. I think it used to be served through SSL, but can't really remember. [2] https://twitter.com/cristianofaria https://twitter.com/cristianofaria

rambossa 9y ago

the twitter account: https://twitter.com/RosieDaSerenata https://twitter.com/RosieDaSerenata

amarant 9y ago

this is awesome! having lived in Brazil I can testify that the country really need this (if such testimony is necessary). However I do think other countries would benefit too! I've long wished for AI governance, and this is a great step in the direction I imagine that working. I for one welcome our new robot overlords ;)

andrepd 9y ago
>I've long wished for AI governance Someone has to write the algorithms, and something tells me it's not going to be the 99%.
- zaarn 9y ago
  It probably wouldn't end in a Skynet-type situation. Or rather, that is very very unlikely. Though on the remote possibility that this does happen; I welcome our new AI overlords!
- rbanffy 9y ago
  I don't know who'll build it, but any such AI should be named after Stafford Beer's Cybersyn.

personlurking 9y ago

Slightly off-topic, but this is what a Serenata de Amor is in Brazil (it's a bonbon and it's very good, IMHO): https://i.imgur.com/tQZ0JHF.jpg https://i.imgur.com/tQZ0JHF.jpg

oblio 9y ago
I assume it's also "love song" (well, "love serenade", to be a bit more accurate) :)
- csjr 9y ago
  You are correct! https://serenata.ai/en/faq/ https://serenata.ai/en/faq/
neves 9y ago
YMMV: It is overwhelming sweet.

dovyski 9y ago

This is such a cool project that deserves some attention. As a side note: one of the project members was interviewed on The Changelog[0]. The interview presents many topics related to the project, e.g. technology, community, challenges. [0] https://changelog.com/podcast/268 https://changelog.com/podcast/268

dorfsmay 9y ago
Thanks. I was was actually about to post this. Fábio Rehm gives a really good overview of the project in that podcast. This is how I actually discovered that project.
- fgrehm 9y ago
  Oh, It wasn't me :) I just suggested the podcast and Eduardo Cuducos (@cuducos) talked about it there =}
  - dorfsmay 9y ago
    Oh! I discovered it from one of your tweet / blog! Thanks for the correction.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

gomox 9y ago

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 this looks like noise. Is someone able to find a more substantial report?

prophet_ 9y ago
It would also be handy if we had a short description of the suspicion in the tweet message itself.
yelloweyes 9y ago
The average brazilian does not spend 50 BRL on a meal. Why should a public servant be able to? These guys are living like kings when they are mostly blowhards with very few skills other than being able to manipulate poor people into voting for them.
- gomox 9y ago
  Well, a congressman is hardly an average citizen. I don't necessarily disagree with your point but that doesn't necessarily mean that spending 15 USD on lunch is a sign of corruption. Brazil is in many ways similar to Argentina (where I live) and the average voter doesn't value austerity much. Our current president is the son of one of the richest businessman in the country, and is a millionaire himself.
lenilsonjr 9y ago
Take this one, for instance: https://jarbas.serenata.ai/layers/#/documentId/6185347 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 dig deeper into other reports, you can also see congresspeople spending public money in sex shops and clubs, for instance (https://twitter.com/cuducos/status/840882495868530688 https://twitter.com/cuducos/status/840882495868530688).

soroso 9y ago

Serenata de Amor is a brazilian candy: https://hibrazilmarket.com/products/garoto-serenata-de-amor-19g-1 https://hibrazilmarket.com/products/garoto-serenata-de-amor-... From their faq: https://serenata.ai/en/faq/ https://serenata.ai/en/faq/ 1 - We were inspired by the Toblerone Affair, a case in which a Swedish politician was pushed to resign after being caught paying simple Toblerone chocolate bar with public money. That’s what we want to do: empower social control of public expenditures including values as low as a chocolate bar.

JackuB 9y ago

Slightly OT but combination of gov and data kind of reminded me of Project Cybersyn. If you like this project, you might find reading about Cybersyn interesting http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machine http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/13/planning-machin...

finnh 9y ago
Also: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/ https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/project-cybersyn/

ggambetta 9y ago

FWIW, it is named after an immensely popular bonbon from Brazil: https://www.garoto.com.br/produtos/detalhes/191 https://www.garoto.com.br/produtos/detalhes/191

lbrito 9y ago

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 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.

SiempreViernes 9y ago
It's a bit bland compared to what Eduardo Cunha could pull in, but then Cunha didn't get his money by sending a receipt to be reimbursed. The problem is more that this sort of data isn't likely to find the serious corruption, it'll likely just find pedestrian examples of misuse of public funds.
notahacker 9y ago
Yeah, as well intentioned as it is, the real corruption is people taking huge backhanders for stuff, and diverting government funds to their family, not people forgetting to name the members of staff they had lunch with on paperwork, getting the date wrong on the paperwork or buying stuff in both the origin city and destination city of their flights. And the real corruption generally doesn't involve expense receipts The UK had a similar issue which started off with looking at very specific instances where politicians made hundreds of thousands of pounds from fraudulent representations for expenses associated with a London "second home" and ended up ranking MPs by office expenses they were very much entitled to claim and highlighting legitimate claims for snacks just because they were funny. Trouble is, the basic conclusion was "all MPs are corrupt" which actually makes it harder to grab public attention over more serious conflicts of interest.
forinti 9y ago
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.

motohagiography 9y ago

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 an upper end restaurant will %90 draw political consequences from an AI, with a high degree of uncertainty in the cost to fight it, vs. accepting the hosts generosity, with a sub-%5 chance of consequences occurring like having to pay your share, or a minor sanction some years into the future. I'd argue most politicians necessarily make risk and cost/benefit calculations before ethical signalling ones, and the indiscriminate application of rules in this case creates inverted incentives that demoralize the situation, and will cause them to start accepting insignificant bribes. The economic value of "AI" is mostly to obfuscate and symbolically defray the chain of individual human accountability. While this may be working for the "good guys," in the public interest, 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. It's fascinating and cool, but it's also a bit disingenuous to accept magical pretexts and other ethical proxies because we perceive them to be "on our side."

yelloweyes 9y ago
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.
deleted 9y ago
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SiempreViernes 9y ago
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.

slededit 9y ago

Why is a fishing expedition OK in this scenario but not in normal criminal cases? It's not a value judgement. I think it's an interesting question.

forinti 9y ago

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).

pedro_hab 9y ago
hmn, do you mean corruption is not as bad as income inequality? Because one can argue that corruption foster inequality, where government workers steal money from the people, they give favor to rich "friends" making them richer. I can guess your solution is to give more power to the state to solve the inequality issue, which actually worsens the corruption caused inequality.
- forinti 9y ago
  I don't think cutting corruption to zero would impact people's lives as much as having a progressive tax system. If you look at overall tax burden, the lowest tier pays close to 50%. The highest tier, a bit over 25%. Trump tried to lower corporate tax to 15% and not even his party thought it was reasonable. In Brazil, corporate tax is zero. One of the richest people in Brazil, Steinbruch, was caught trying to evade an estate tax of only 4%, when food is taxed at near 20%.
  - cjalmeida 9y ago
    You're wrong. In Brazil corporate income is taxed at 34,5% (base 15%, plus additional 10% for medium to big sized companies, plus 9,5% for social security) That amount is on par or above OCDE counties, and much higher than most developing nations. What we don't have is dividend tax. Unlike corporate tax that one must pay every quarter, you only pay dividend tax if you give money back to shareholders, so reinvestments are not taxed. Usually countries balance income and dividend taxes so the government has a stable income but doesn't penalize investments as much. In Brazil, we opted for screwing investors. Not to mention that companies pay an enormous amount of money in combined sales taxes. A manufacturing company usually pays 17% for state sales tax, another 9,35% federal social security, and sometimes an extra 5% to 15% for "luxury good" (like shampoo). So, again, you're completely wrong and companies (read YOU) pay a hell lot of taxes in Brazil. Source: I worked in investment analysis in another life.

coliveira 9y ago

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.

epx 9y ago
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?)
- coliveira 9y ago
  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-ab04428977f9 https://www.ft.com/content/a9e193de-2044-11e7-a454-ab0442897...
  - epx 9y ago
    I am not naive, and you should not be naive to the "bad bad foreigners" mantra that is tailored for the reptilian brain layer of the voters, either.
    - badosu 9y ago
      Dude, this hapoens and is not as negligible as you imply. Sure, there's an agenda to appeal for a certain rhetoric, but you must accept some facts.
- marcosdumay 9y ago
  > The other excuse was that "corruption is small compared to the GDP". Well, we already know as a fact that at least in Brazil the excuse is wrong. There's a long time that I don't hear it, so I guess people can't even deny anymore. The new excuse is "but look, the people that inherited the power do it too, and nothing is happening to them". So, back to good old whataboutism.

wallflower 9y ago

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

dashoffset 9y ago
> countries where corruption is endemic and part of the culture almost always started out as "extraction colonies". This is an overly simplified, albeit correct, way to explain it.
- wallflower 9y ago
  In case you see this, can you please point me to any resources /books on a non-overly simplified way to explain the roots of corruption in Latin American countries?
  - dashoffset 9y ago
    I would start with "The causes of corruption" by Daniel Treisman. It isn't specific to Latin America, though. In summary, Treisman will show that many factors appear to have an influence on whether a country is more or less corrupt. The colonial past of Latin American countries helps to explain part of it, but it doesn't appear to be a causa sine qua non.
    - wallflower 9y ago
      Thank you! I have started reading the paper, and it is interesting to read how the author lays out his hypotheses. Most intriguing is the link between how judicial systems that were setup to support the king may tend to be more corrupt since they were literally robbing property/money from his subjects. On the other side, the British system relies on judicial precedents and process, helping ensure a more fair trial between the government and property owners/business people. https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/131389/original/Treisman2000.pdf https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/131389/original/Treisman2...

diego_moita 9y ago

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 you allow me to explain such disease bluntly, here it is: the Brazilian voter is astonishingly stupid. Brazilians vote very, very badly. Politicians with a long and explicit history of corruption are routinely re-elected and remain very popular (e.g: Maluf, Sarney, Calheiros, Collor, Lula and almost everyone in the 3 big parties: PMDB, PSDB and PT). There is even a standard justification for this behaviour, people say "rouba mas faz" (he steals but gets things done). Like in most of the 3rd world and countries with authoritarian history, the overwhelming majority of the Brazilian voters don't understand how corruption, nepotism, patronage and incompetence affects them. I bet Turkey, Russia, Poland and Hungary are the same. Democracy goes far beyond the formal institutions, you need a civic heart, a belief within every citizen's mind that the public good matters a lot and affects everyone. In most 3rd world countries people just don't "get" this.

ymgch 9y ago
Another 'vira-lata' here. Thinking about braziL causes me nausea. Hope that 'country' be better but I really doubt.
Apaec 9y ago
In Peru we have an equivalent phrase for "rouba mas faz", the "roba pero hace obra", also a popular justification that got a corrupt major elected for Lima, even when major media outlets showed proofs of corruption.
TremendousJudge 9y ago
We're talking about a country that gave 1.35 million votes to a literal clown [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiririca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiririca
- notahacker 9y ago