INSPIRE: Value-Function Handoffs in Human-Machine Compositions that are under Design for the Internet of Things

INSPIRE这个INSPIRE项目是由社会科学、行为和经济科学部的科学、技术和社会(STS)计划、综合活动办公室(OIA)和计算机和信息科学与工程局的计算机和网络系统司的四个项目共同资助的：安全和可信的网络空间(SATC)、网络技术和系统(NETS)、计算机系统研究(CSR)和网络物理系统(CPS)。一般受众摘要这个跨学科的项目汇集了社会科学家、计算机科学家、工程师和设计师参与一个协作研究项目。该项目的目标是更好地了解涉及相互关联的社会和技术主体的复杂系统中的价值交接。社会主体可以包括人和组织，技术主体可以包括设备和基础设施。这种系统的一个例子是互联网，这是一个全球通信网络，允许世界各地的几乎所有计算机用户连接和交换信息。当这样的系统中的代理之间存在交互时，就会有一只手离开功能。关于互联网，一种这样的功能是保存信息内容；这种移交涉及代表诸如可靠性和可信性等特定价值的其他功能。本项目侧重于物联网，物联网是互联网的扩展，包括通过该网络远程监控和控制的物理设备(如车辆、建筑物和传感设备)。研究团队将在这个更广泛的领域开发三个案例研究：生物传感、智能家居和视觉数据处理。研究小组已经开发了价值交接的初步模型。在三个案例研究中的每一个案例研究中，他们都将与一名确定的技术研究人员合作，使用模型来塑造技术，并从技术中获得见解，以完善他们的模型；通过案例序列发生的许多反馈过程产生的模型版本预计将适用于广泛的社会-技术系统。该项目的成果将有助于满足一种迫切的需求，即培养对人类和机器之间相互关系的严格思考，使事物在整个社会中运行良好，与人类的需求相一致，并服务于社会价值观。该项目可能考虑的价值观包括安全、隐私、可信度、问责制、透明度、自主性、知识产权、言论和结社自由、正义和公平。未能保护价值交接可能会对技术采用构成障碍，并给社会中最不享有特权的人带来负担。这表明，指导价值移交决策的模型可能至关重要。技术总结研究小组将开发物联网领域社会技术整合研究的三个案例：生物传感、智能家居和视觉数据处理。私人投资促进机构将从对实际和潜在的价值职能移交的具体案例的仔细研究中学习，根据其临时模式来描述这些职能的特征；反过来，该模式将随着项目的发展而演变。在对三个案例进行多次反馈迭代后产生的模型预计将适用于广泛的社会技术系统。该项目还将促进制定新的工作方法和互动模式，以推动围绕价值交接的更综合、更少反应和对立的进程。除了对流程和方法做出变革性的贡献外，该项目还在确定价值如何以及在哪里成为技术系统设计的一部分方面做出了变革性的智力贡献，特别是在三个具有社会重要性的技术系统(物联网、传感器和智能家居)中。该项目将揭示和解决与设计和开发现实世界复杂的社会-网络-物理系统有关的伦理、政治和社会问题，使用来自先前STS研究的成熟、高度发达的理论思想的见解。相反，该项目有可能为STS文献做出贡献，并通过他们与开发现实世界功能系统的技术人员的合作经验，利用新的见解推动STS领域的发展，加强和挑战有争议的立场。

INSPIREThis INSPIRE project is co-funded by the Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program in the Social and Economic Sciences Division, which is in the Directorate Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, the Office of Integrative Activities (OIA), and four programs in the Division of Computer and Network Systems, which is in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering: Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC), Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS), Computer Systems Research (CSR), and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS).General Audience Summary This interdisciplinary project brings together social scientists, computer scientists, engineers, and designers to engage in a collaborative research project. The goal of the project is to obtain a better understanding of value handoffs in complex systems that involve interconnected social and technological agents. The social agents may include humans and organizations, the technological agents may include devices and infrastructures. An example of such a system is the internet, a global communication network that allows almost all users of computers worldwide to connect and exchange information. When there are interactions between agents in such systems, there is a hand off of functions. With regards to the Internet, one such function is the preservation of information content; that handoff involves others that represent specific values such as reliability and trustworthiness. This project focuses on the Internet of things, an extension of the Internet to include physical devices (such as vehicles, buildings, and sensing devices) that are monitored and controlled remotely across that network. The research team will develop three case studies in in this broader domain: bio-sensing, smart homes, and visual data processing. The research team has developed a preliminary model for value handoffs. In each of the three case studies, they will collaborate with an identified technical researcher to use the model to shape the technology, and to gain insights from the technology to refine their model; the version of the model that results from numerous feedback processes that are to occur through the sequence of cases is expected to be applicable to a broad range of socio-technical systems. The results of this project will serve to meet an urgent need to foster rigorous thinking about humans and machines in relation to one another, to making things work well across society, in concert with human need, and in service of societal values. Among the values potentially under consideration in this project are security, privacy, trustworthiness, accountability, transparency, autonomy, intellectual property, freedoms of speech and association, justice, and fairness. Failures to protect value handoffs are likely to pose barriers to technical adoption, and to impose burdens on the least privileged in society. This indicates that models to guide decisions about value handoffs are likely to be of critical importance.Technical Summary The research team will develop three case studies in socio-technical integration research in the domain of the Internet of Things: bio-sensing, smart homes, and visual data processing. The PIs will learn from close study of particular cases about actual and potential handoffs of value-laden functions by characterizing them in terms of their provisional model; in turn, the model will undergo evolution as the project develops. The model that results after a number of feedback iterations through the three cases is expected to be applicable to a broad range of socio-technical systems. The project will also facilitate the development of new methods of work and patterns of interaction that could advance a more integrated and less reactive and oppositional process around value handoffs. In addition to making transformative contributions to process and methodology, the project makes transformative intellectual contributions in identifying how and where values are part of technology systems design, in particular as seen in three socially important technology systems (IoT, sensors, and smart homes). The project will bring to bring to light and address the ethical, political, and societal issues that are enmeshed with the design and development of real world complex socio-cyber-physical systems using insights from mature, highly developed theoretical ideas resulting from prior STS research. In the reverse direction, the project holds potential to contribute to the STS literature and to advance the field of STS field with new insights drawn from their collaborative experiences with technologists developing real world functioning systems, reinforcing and challenging controversial positions.