On Social Machines for Algorithmic Regulation
This work highlights a convergent trend towards algorithmic regulation, raising concerns about human autonomy and social order, but is incremental as it synthesizes existing ideas without new empirical results.
The paper identifies existing technologies, such as crowdsourced task-work and reputation systems, that can implement algorithmic regulation of society, and discusses the potential social and political consequences of this trend.
Autonomous mechanisms have been proposed to regulate certain aspects of society and are already being used to regulate business organisations. We take seriously recent proposals for algorithmic regulation of society, and we identify the existing technologies that can be used to implement them, most of them originally introduced in business contexts. We build on the notion of 'social machine' and we connect it to various ongoing trends and ideas, including crowdsourced task-work, social compiler, mechanism design, reputation management systems, and social scoring. After showing how all the building blocks of algorithmic regulation are already well in place, we discuss possible implications for human autonomy and social order. The main contribution of this paper is to identify convergent social and technical trends that are leading towards social regulation by algorithms, and to discuss the possible social, political, and ethical consequences of taking this path.