I hope we don't do to trust what advertising has done to love
This paper initiates a conceptual discussion for researchers and practitioners in AI and civil society to define and operationalize trust in agentic systems, but it is incremental and lacks empirical validation.
The author warns against trivializing the concept of trust in AI, similar to how advertising trivialized love, and proposes actionable 'trust pillars' for agentic systems, suggesting that explicit interfaces can serve as 'trust vectors' to foster a communal conversation across computing and civil society.
Advertising uses love to sell stuff, like nylons. It also uses the word "love" in trivialising ways -- do you "love" your oven? When I hear about trust in the context of AI, especially agentic, I hope we don't do to trust what advertising has done to love. But what is trust? Can we discuss it in actionable and measurable ways in the context of AI? Thus I suggest a number of "trust pillars", hoping to start a communal conversation, across computing and beyond, to civil society. I also suggest that agentic systems may be a blessing in disguise, as we may be able to turn their explicit interfaces into "trust vectors".