Governing Human and Machine Behavior in an Experimenting Society
Host
Stefanie Mueller
Governing Human and Machine Behavior in an Experimenting Society
Today's social technologies observe and intervene in the lives of billions of people, exercising tremendous power in society. Experimentation infrastructures, which manage tens of thousands of behavioral studies a year, offer one avenue for guiding the use and accountability of platform power.
In this talk, I will describe CivilServant, a citizen behavioral science infrastructure that supports the public to test ideas for a fairer, safer, more understanding internet– independently of the tech industry. Communities with tens of millions of people have used CivilServant to test ideas for responding to human/algorithmic misinformation, preventing harassment, managing politically-partisan conflict, and monitoring the effects of AI law enforcement systems on civil liberties.
As social technologies grow in power and reach, many have come to expect that they should address enduring social problems including misinformation, conflict, and public health. Consequently, engineers, designers, and data scientists are becoming policymakers whose systems govern the behavior of humans and machines at scale. Re-engineering these systems for public interest purposes in democratic societies requires substantial changes in the design, accountability, and statistical capabilities of software for mass experimentation.
About Nathan Matias:
Dr. J. Nathan Matias is a computer scientist and social scientist who organizes citizen behavioral science for a fairer, safer and more understanding internet. He advances this work in collaboration with tens of millions of people through his nonprofit CivilServant and as a postdoc at the Princeton University departments of Psychology, the Center for Information Technology Policy, and Sociology. Before Princeton, Nathan completed a PhD at the MIT Media Lab's Center for Civic Media, served as a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center, worked in tech startups that have reached over a billion devices, and helped start a series of education and journalistic charities. His journalism has appeared in The Atlantic, PBS, the Guardian, and other international media.
Today's social technologies observe and intervene in the lives of billions of people, exercising tremendous power in society. Experimentation infrastructures, which manage tens of thousands of behavioral studies a year, offer one avenue for guiding the use and accountability of platform power.
In this talk, I will describe CivilServant, a citizen behavioral science infrastructure that supports the public to test ideas for a fairer, safer, more understanding internet– independently of the tech industry. Communities with tens of millions of people have used CivilServant to test ideas for responding to human/algorithmic misinformation, preventing harassment, managing politically-partisan conflict, and monitoring the effects of AI law enforcement systems on civil liberties.
As social technologies grow in power and reach, many have come to expect that they should address enduring social problems including misinformation, conflict, and public health. Consequently, engineers, designers, and data scientists are becoming policymakers whose systems govern the behavior of humans and machines at scale. Re-engineering these systems for public interest purposes in democratic societies requires substantial changes in the design, accountability, and statistical capabilities of software for mass experimentation.
About Nathan Matias:
Dr. J. Nathan Matias is a computer scientist and social scientist who organizes citizen behavioral science for a fairer, safer and more understanding internet. He advances this work in collaboration with tens of millions of people through his nonprofit CivilServant and as a postdoc at the Princeton University departments of Psychology, the Center for Information Technology Policy, and Sociology. Before Princeton, Nathan completed a PhD at the MIT Media Lab's Center for Civic Media, served as a fellow at Harvard's Berkman Klein Center, worked in tech startups that have reached over a billion devices, and helped start a series of education and journalistic charities. His journalism has appeared in The Atlantic, PBS, the Guardian, and other international media.