SOCIAM: The Theory and Practice of Social Machines

SOCIAM——社交机器——将研究支持万维网上有目的的人类互动的开创性方法，就像维基百科和银河动物园这样的现象。这些合作具有赋权作用，因为社区可以识别和解决自己的问题，利用他们的承诺、当地知识和嵌入式技能，而不必依赖远程专家或政府。这种交互的特点是一种新的突发的、集体的问题解决方式，其中我们看到(i)通过网络大规模的人类参与解决问题，（ii）使用开放数据标准访问或生成大量相关数据的能力，（iii）对数据质量的信心，以及（iv）直观的界面。“机器”过去是由程序员编写程序并由用户使用的。网络，以及大量参与其中的人们，已经打破了这个界限：我们现在看到的是以社交网站为代表的人们与内容和彼此互动的格局。我们不应该像计算机科学的传统做法那样，将协作中的人和机器部分分开，而应该在它们之间划清界限，将每一个这样的组合都视为一台由数字和人类组件组成的机器——一台社会机器。这种思想上的关键转变承认了当今社会技术系统的现实。这种观点的生态系统不是人类和计算机，而是共同进化的社会机器。SOCIAM的目标是使我们能够建立社会机器，解决日常生活中的日常任务和紧急情况。它的目标是发展理论和实践，这样我们就可以创造下一代分散的、数据密集型的社交机器。了解当前这一代成功的社交机器的属性，将有助于我们打造下一代。这项研究承担了四个必要的任务。首先，我们需要发现社会计算是如何出现的，因为社会必须承担很多识别问题、设计解决方案和处理解决问题的复杂性的负担。在线可扩展算法需要为用户服务。这就引出了第二个任务，提供对数据网络（包括用户生成的数据）的无缝访问。第三，我们需要了解如何让社会机器负起责任，并建立对其运作至关重要的信任。第四，我们需要设计社会机器所有元素之间的交互：机器和人之间，以机器为媒介的人之间，机器、人与他们使用和产生的数据之间。SOCIAM的工作将以社会机器观察站的经验为基础，跟踪、监测和分类现有的社会机器和发展中的新社会机器，并作为破坏性的新社会机器的早期预警设施。这些相互关联的研究方向最初将在卫生、交通、警务和推动开放数据城市（整个城市地区的所有公共数据都联系在一起）等实际应用的背景下与社会研究协会的合作伙伴进行测试和评估。将研究理念投入到现实中，可以检验其实用性和持久性。例如，开放城市应用程序将寻求利用公共开放数据资源，在全市范围内参与共享问题（例如卫生、交通和警务）。SOCIAM将进行广泛的综合研究，参与实际应用环境，包括使用我们的天文台进行纵向研究，为社会计算和社会机器提供前沿理论和实践。它将支持基础研究；建立多学科团队；与工业界和政府合作，以实现研究；促进增长和创新——最重要的是——对改变信息通信技术的方向产生影响。

SOCIAM - Social Machines - will research into pioneering methods of supporting purposeful human interaction on the World Wide Web, of the kind exemplified by phenomena such as Wikipedia and Galaxy Zoo. These collaborations are empowering, as communities identify and solve their own problems, harnessing their commitment, local knowledge and embedded skills, without having to rely on remote experts or governments.Such interaction is characterised by a new kind of emergent, collective problem solving, in which we see (i) problems solved by very large scale human participation via the Web, (ii) access to, or the ability to generate, large amounts of relevant data using open data standards, (iii) confidence in the quality of the data and (iv) intuitive interfaces."Machines" used to be programmed by programmers and used by users. The Web, and the massive participation in it, has dissolved this boundary: we now see configurations of people interacting with content and each other, typified by social web sites. Rather than dividing between the human and machine parts of the collaboration (as computer science has traditionally done), we should draw a line around them and treat each such assembly as a machine in its own right comprising digital and human components - a Social Machine. This crucial transition in thinking acknowledges the reality of today's sociotechnical systems. This view is of an ecosystem not of humans and computers but of co-evolving Social Machines.The ambition of SOCIAM is to enable us to build social machines that solve the routine tasks of daily life as well as the emergencies. Its aim is to develop the theory and practice so that we can create the next generation of decentralised, data intensive, social machines. Understanding the attributes of the current generation of successful social machines will help us build the next.The research undertakes four necessary tasks. First, we need to discover how social computing can emerge given that society has to undertake much of the burden of identifying problems, designing solutions and dealing with the complexity of the problem solving. Online scaleable algorithms need to be put to the service of the users. This leads us to the second task, providing seamless access to a Web of Data including user generated data. Third, we need to understand how to make social machines accountable and to build the trust essential to their operation. Fourth, we need to design the interactions between all elements of social machines: between machine and human, between humans mediated by machines, and between machines, humans and the data they use and generate. SOCIAM's work will be empirically grounded by a Social Machines Observatory to track, monitor and classify existing social machines and new ones as they evolve, and act as an early warning facility for disruptive new social machines.These lines of interlinked research will initially be tested and evaluated in the context of real-world applications in health, transport, policing and the drive towards open data cities (where all public data across an urban area is linked together) in collaboration with SOCIAM's partners. Putting research ideas into the field to encounter unvarnished reality provides a check as to their utility and durability. For example the Open City application will seek to harness citywide participation in shared problems (e.g. with health, transport and policing) exploiting common open data resources. SOCIAM will undertake a breadth of integrated research, engaging with real application contexts, including the use of our observatory for longitudinal studies, to provide cutting edge theory and practice for social computation and social machines. It will support fundamental research; the creation of a multidisciplinary team; collaboration with industry and government in realization of the research; promote growth and innovation - most importantly - impact in changing the direction of ICT.