Social Machines

ZusammenfassungSocial Machines sind ein Paradigma für die Gestaltung soziotechnischer Systeme, die unter Verwendung von Web- und Plattformlösungen das Potenzial digitaler Technologien mit der Eigenlogik sozialer Interaktion, Organisation und Strukturbildung auf neue Weise zusammenführen. Im Folgenden diskutieren wir das Paradigma der Social Machine aus den Perspektiven der Informatik, der Wirtschaftsinformatik, der Soziologie und des Rechts, um Orientierungspunkte für seine Gestaltung zu identifizieren. Der Begriff ist in der Literatur jedoch bisher nicht abschließend definiert sondern nur durch Beispiele illustriert.In diesem Artikel stellen wir zunächst die folgende Definition zur Diskussion: Social Machines sind soziotechnische Systeme, in denen die Prozesse sozialer Interaktion hybrid zwischen menschlichen und maschinellen Akteuren ablaufen und teilweise algorithmisiert sind. Im Anschluss beleuchten wir drei aktuelle, sich gegenseitig bedingende Entwicklungen von Social Machines: die immer stärkere Verschmelzung von Sozialität und Maschine, die Vermessung von Nutzeraktivitäten als Grundstoff gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts und die zunehmende Algorithmisierung gesellschaftlicher Prozesse. Abschließend diskutieren wir, dass eine teilhabeorientierte, demokratischen Werten folgende Gestaltung von Social Machines die Perspektiven der Nutzungsakzeptanz, der gesellschaftlichen Akzeptabilität und der nachhaltigen Wirtschaftlichkeit adressieren und umsetzen muss.

The social turn of artificial intelligence

Social machines are systems formed by material and human elements interacting in a structured way. The use of digital platforms as mediators allows large numbers of humans to participate in such machines, which have interconnected AI and human components operating as a single system capable of highly sophisticated behaviour. Under certain conditions, such systems can be understood as autonomous goal-driven agents. Many popular online platforms can be regarded as instances of this class of agent. We argue that autonomous social machines provide a new paradigm for the design of intelligent systems, marking a new phase in AI. After describing the characteristics of goal-driven social machines, we discuss the consequences of their adoption, for the practice of artificial intelligence as well as for its regulation.

Social Machines

People use familiar networked technologies for coordinating social activities, from games to problem-solving. Such sociotechnical networks have been called social machines, and can be found in healthcare and well-being, crime prevention, transport, citizen science, and in particular during emergencies such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The role of platform(s) as host(s) is key as to how, and how privately, the social machine operates. Social machines can be monetized on the DC Commercial Internet, and monitored on the Beijing Paternal Internet. One means of democratizing the platform is the project to re-decentralize the Internet and Web, to break down the walls of walled gardens and restore decentralization. One such idea, Solid, is described in detail, where people take charge of their personal data, storing it as linked data to increase its utility, but keeping it in personal online datastores (pods) under their control.

Applying mechanical philosophy to web science: The case of social machines

Social machines are a prominent focus of attention for those who work in the field of Web and Internet science. Although a number of online systems have been described as social machines (examples include the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, Reddit, and Galaxy Zoo), there is, as yet, little consensus as to the precise meaning of the term “social machine.” This presents a problem for the scientific study of social machines, especially when it comes to the provision of a theoretical framework that directs, informs, and explicates the scientific and engineering activities of the social machine community. The present paper outlines an approach to understanding social machines that draws on recent work in the philosophy of science, especially work in so-called mechanical philosophy. This is what might be called a mechanistic view of social machines. According to this view, social machines are systems whose phenomena (i.e., events, states, and processes) are explained via an appeal to (online) socio-technical mechanisms. We show how this account is able to accommodate a number of existing attempts to define the social machine concept, thereby yielding an important opportunity for theoretical integration.

Political machines: a framework for studying politics in social machines

In the age of ubiquitous computing and artificially intelligent applications, social machines serves as a powerful framework for understanding and interpreting interactions in socio-algorithmic ecosystems. Although researchers have largely used it to analyze the interactions of individuals and algorithms, limited attempts have been made to investigate the politics in social machines. In this study, I claim that social machines are per se political machines, and introduce a five-point framework for classifying influence processes in socio-algorithmic ecosystems. By drawing from scholars from political theory, I use a notion of influence that functions as a meta-concept for connecting and comparing different conceptions of politics. In this way, I can associate multiple political aspects of social machines from a cybernetic perspective. I show that the framework efficiently categorizes dimensions of influence that shape interactions between individuals and algorithms. These categories are symbolic influence, political conduct, algorithmic influence, design, and regulatory influence. Using case studies, I describe how they interact with each other on online social networks and in algorithmic decision-making systems and illustrate how the framework is able to guide scientists in further research.