Marc Pfeiffer

Big retirement payouts for top cops, fire chiefs and school brass cost $76M. Why can’t N.J. stop them?

September 22, 2023

Despite attempts to cap significant retirement payouts to high-ranking officials in New Jersey, such as police chiefs, fire chiefs, and school administrators since 2010, generous payouts continue, impacting the state's highest property taxes and diverting funds from...

New Report from Marc Pfeiffer – First, Do No Harm: Algorithms, AI, and Digital Product Liability

September 21, 2023

The potential for algorithmic harm(s) are commonly reported to be found in (but are not limited to) technologies such as generative artificial intelligence chatbots, social media, virtual reality, Internet of Things, surveillance tech, robots, etc. This new report provides a pathway to reduce algorithmic harms by incentivizing developers to first, do no harm as opposed to work fast and break things.

Atlantic City Housing Authority spent nearly $500K on leadership consultants

September 6, 2023

ATLANTIC CITY — The Atlantic City Housing Authority spent nearly a half-million dollars on two administrative consultants over the past year and continued to keep them on the payroll through the summer despite the addition of new permanent staff in the same roles......

What State and Local Governments Should Do About Generative AI

August 30, 2023

Society is often slow to appreciate that technological innovations have both positive and negative outcomes. Splitting the atom led to weapons that can destroy the planet, but also provided a source of carbon-free energy and health care advances. Social media apps...

Some cities are pushing for rent control. They’re meeting resistance.

August 3, 2023

With rents soaring since the COVID-19 pandemic tightened the housing supply, more local governments are considering rent control to keep increases in check and, ideally, protect struggling tenants whose incomes haven’t kept pace. At the same time, some...

What state and local governments should do about generative AI

July 28, 2023

How can we take advantage of the technology without harming the public? Society is often slow to appreciate that technological innovations have both positive and negative outcomes. Splitting the atom led to weapons that can destroy the planet, but also provided a...

Paul on The Marc Steiner Show – America’s Lost Promise of Economic Rights

July 11, 2023

Inequality lies at the heart of contemporary American politics—from the dizzying power of corporations and the billionaire class to the racialized and gendered dimensions of wealth and income disparities. Yet the question of economic justice, as well as the struggle...

‘Not a perfect process’: How did the two versions of NJ’s budget differ?

July 11, 2023

As the process to craft New Jersey's state budget came to a chaotic close last month, rumors swirled about what needed to be done to ensure that the spending plan was final and complete by the time it made it to the governor’s desk. In each chamber of the Legislature,...

4 Situations That Make You Tip More In a Restaurant

June 28, 2023

The general concept of tipping, or paying a little bit extra for especially great or speedy service, was actually imported from Europe in the 19th century. Ironically, most Americans were incredibly skeptical of the practice at first. For example, six U.S. states...

‘Secretive’ N.J. governments would be even less transparent under proposed laws, some say

June 21, 2023

Tucked in desk drawers and filed away in email inboxes in every local and county office in New Jersey are government secrets. To find them, news reporters, attorneys and even local gadflies, using access laws like the Open Public Records Act, sift through the...