commodification of trust

What is trust?

Trust dynamics and (not so) speculative scenarios

2. breakdown of the public trust and the tribalization of society

Trust is produced...

Private technological

trust producers

by reducing risks and uncertainties

What is trust?

3. insurance

1. familiarity

A resource which helps us

co-exist, co-depend, and co-operate with strangers

across cultural, economic, social, geographic distances.

harm reduction

shared knowledge

risk management

predictability

exposure limitation

stability

4. distrust

certainty

division of power

reputation info

checks& balances

2. control

monitoring

Contracts

oversight

• planetary scale
• algorithmic
• lightly regulated
• private
• disembedded
• untrustworthy

techno-social infrastructures

communal

clear rules

enforcement

private

• familiar, ethnic, religious, tribal, political, ideological networks
• professional associations
• value based identity communities
• fate/ shared experience communities
• epistemic communities (conspiracy networks)
• shared past
• shared space

• traditional private actors:
• banks, credit rating agencies, insurers
• trust professions
• legal, accountant, etc.
• brands
• technology companies
• reputation platforms, AI, ADM, blockchain

trust through

the control of the future

public

Machine learning, AI, ADM, predictive systems:

automatic recommenders, classifiers, filters, predictors

trust through

the control of the past

• schools
• public service media
• laws and law enforcement,
• court system
• high quality public services (health care, public safety, national security)
• fair, transparent, disinterested public administration
• commitment to public values: Rule of Law, fundamental rights and principles of good governance

planetary scale, private reputation management systems

certainty, insurance: reduce future uncertainty by eliminating bad choices, highlighting good choices, calculating risk, limiting potential harm

trust through

the control of the present

sharing economy & e-commerce platforms:

Uber, Airbnb, amazon, ebay, vatera

familiarity: collapse trustworthiness signals (both on/off platform) into globally legible, interaction specific, but generalizable reputation scores

code as law infrastructures: blockchains, smart contracts, DAOs, DRM

control, distrust: minimize the opportunities of bad behavior by hard-coding, and enforcing in real time algorithmic constraints in reputation-poor, pseudonymous environment

a quick context

3 eras of trust relationships

TRUST

• the current dynamics of communal / public and private trust logics seem to favor either the commodification, or the fragmentation of trust

• the fragmentation may lead to tribalization and incommensurable trust networks

• planetary scale trust network are private

• the public logics in the middle are hollowed out

• ERC grant to study the policy issues around emerging blockchain applications (2018-)
• Approach: bc developments point to larger underlying opportunities and challenges, such as:
• digital scarcity, code as law, automated rule enforcement, strong anonymity, regulability of decentralized networks, and
• trust

This is not an enrichment, but an enclosure, and displacement of public trust .

Is there an alternative?

the primacy of public (state) trust infrastructures

the primacy of private (technological) trust infrastructures

the primacy of communal (reciprocal) trust infrastructures

private infrastructures to provide trust in the internet era

from the 1970's onwards

the reinforcement of the public trust frameworks

17th century onwards:

rise of the modern centralized state

industrial revolution,

itnl/ intnl. capital

mercantilism,

bourgeoise

need to coexist and cooperate with strangers beyond the reach of communal trust networks.

the modern (nation)state standardizes measures, language, laws, public administration, education, news and information, etc.

• we spend lot of time to make sure private trust producers are trustworthy
• but we do this in a fragmented manner: AI act, ethical AI, fairness-accountability-transparency, privacy-by-design, etc.
• and even if we succeed, we helped to privatize trust production!

• we spend much less time preserving our dwindling communal and public trust infrastructures (with the same tools and attention)
• we need to switch our focus:

from what they need to be

to what we want to be

1. maintain the trust in government at all costs

invest more in social cohesion, solidarity; high quality public services

2. distrust tech

3. don't replace trusted institutions with tech

don't outsource core tasks; preserve institutional knowledge, competence; strengthen institutions

4. be risk averse, reduce uncertainty

reduce existing risks, if possible, don't introduce new risks in social, economic, political relations. don't fear missing out.

5. compete on values (with the US ad China)

don't compete solely on tech innovation/ adoption, or economic efficiency. there is no society or nature on purely market terms

• commodifies trust:
• disembedded from existing social, political, cultural, relations, cognitive frameworks
• mass-produced,
• standardized
• universally legible
• privately owned &operated

social, economic, ecological co-dependence and cooperation takes place beyond the reach of public infrastructures

fragmented social, economic, cultural political landscape:

the majority of social, cultural, economic relations happen within semi-permeable local, geographically self-contained, ethnic, linguistic, economic, religious networks.

economic actors develop similar private trust logics based on standardization and interoperability:

mass production, taylorism and other modern management techniques, production line, brands, consumer research, intl. standards, etc.

the commodification of trust

step 1:

public trust breaks down

Dr. Balazs Bodo (IViR, UvA)

1. Chinese social credit scenario

4. the authoritarian scenario

step 5:

untrustworthy tech leads to untrustworthy public services

- we face challenges beyond the state's powers

(global economic, ecological, health, humanitarian crises)

- we face loss of familiarity, certainty, control

(growing diversity, internet, disruption)

- new (and old) technologies create new risks

(globalization, vaccines, AI, ADM, policing, nuclear, carbon, plastic, ...)

• failures, shortcomings foster social tensions
• the perceived quality of public services falls

public and private trust infrastructures merge and act in concert to serve predominantly political goals

step 2: communal

trust fills the gaps

"The quality of public services and perceived social tensions have the biggest impact on overall trust in institutions. "

public trust infrastructure is captured by a single group, treats the public trust institutions as private, and only serve some, conditionally, but backed with the power of the state.

serves predominantly private interests

Eurofound (2018), Societal change and trust in institutions, Publications Office of the European Union, Luxembourg.

"As trust in governments erodes, people turn to familiar and like-minded groups for community and a sense of security.

People will also use social identities such as culture, ethnicity, nationality, and religion as critical filters for managing information overload, further fragmenting national identities and undermining trust in government.

These identities provide a sense of belonging and reinforce norms about how group members should behave, rules about whom to trust, and beliefs about complex issues. "

3. the 'franchulate' scenario

US National Intelligence Council.

Global trends 2040. (2021).

step 4: private trust technologies turn out to be untrustworthy

public trust infrastructures collapse, private (techno) trust infrastructures fill in the gap.

inclusion in private trust services requires labor,

exclusion means social, economic abjection

step 3: governments turn to private technological trust providers to address issues

• tech cannot do what it promised to do
• tech providers do not act in the best interest of the local (national) individuals and communities
• public values clash with private values

• lack of local embeddedness

(foreign companies; automated decisions; remote operations and oversight; lack of transparency)

• lack of regulation, accountability, oversight

(black box tech; low levels of regulation; information, power asymmetries)

Technologies for:

• flexible education, life-long remote learning (google classroom)
• more efficient policing (facial rec., predictive pol.)
• more efficient & cheaper administration (welfare, tax fraud detection)
• better public health (vacc. passports, tracing apps, AI diagnostics)
• personalized information and news in PSM
• modernized identity systems (blockchains, SSI)
• efficient economic administration (electronic payment systems, CBDC, etc)
• ...

What needs to be done?

Eu Regulation on trustworthy AI will not automatically make AI trustworthy, and miraculously solve all of our trust problems.

The issue is much more extensive, and complex.

join us, we need you.

We need answers:

Trust Research Agenda

• what is our vision regarding trust, technology, society and the government?
• refocus from trust in (AI, IOT, ...) to TRUST in the digital society

• how to make private, technological actors more trustworthy?
• how to maintain trust in the government?
• how to break the vicious cycle?
• how communal, public and private trust can work together rather than compete?
• how to mix technological, legal, economic, and socio-political (governance) elements to create more trust in society?

Dr. Balazs Bodo

Instituut voor Informatierecht

Universiteit van Amsterdam

bodo@uva.nl

put trust in the top of the research and policy agenda!

interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder

systemic research and dialogue