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，维基百科和银河动物园等现象就是一种例证。随着社区识别和解决自己的问题，利用他们的承诺、当地知识和嵌入的技能，而不必依赖远程专家或政府，这些合作是有能力的。这种互动的特点是一种新的紧急、集体的问题解决方式，其中我们看到(I)通过Web的大规模人类参与解决的问题，(Ii)使用开放数据标准访问或生成大量相关数据的能力，(Iii)对数据质量的信心和(Iv)直观的界面。过去由程序员编程并由用户使用的“机器”。网络和对它的广泛参与打破了这一界限：我们现在看到人们与内容和彼此互动的配置，以社交网站为代表。我们不应该像计算机科学传统上所做的那样，将协作中的人和机器部分分开，而是应该在它们之间划出一条线，并将每一个这样的组装本身视为一台机器，由数字和人类组件组成--一台社交机器。这一重要的思想转变承认了当今社会技术体系的现实。这种观点不是关于人类和计算机的生态系统，而是关于共同进化的社会机器的生态系统。SOCIAM的雄心是使我们能够建造解决日常生活和紧急情况下的日常任务的社会机器。它的目的是发展理论和实践，以便我们能够创造下一代分散的、数据密集型的社交机器。了解当代成功的社交机器的属性将有助于我们构建下一代。研究承担着四项必要的任务。首先，我们需要发现社会计算是如何出现的，因为社会必须承担识别问题、设计解决方案和处理问题解决的复杂性的大部分负担。在线可扩展算法需要为用户服务。这将我们引向第二个任务，提供对数据Web的无缝访问，包括用户生成的数据。第三，我们需要了解如何让社交机器负起责任，并建立对其运行至关重要的信任。第四，我们需要设计社交机器的所有元素之间的互动：机器与人之间，由机器中介的人类之间，以及机器、人类与他们使用和生成的数据之间的互动。SOCIAM的工作将由一个社会机器观察站以经验为基础，在现有的社会机器和新的社会机器进化时对它们进行跟踪、监控和分类，并作为颠覆性新的社会机器的早期预警设施。这些相互关联的研究路线最初将在与SOCIAM的合作伙伴合作的真实世界应用程序的背景下进行测试和评估，这些应用程序在卫生、交通、警务和推动开放数据城市(城市地区的所有公共数据都链接在一起)的背景下进行。把研究想法付诸于实地，去面对赤裸裸的现实，可以检查它们的实用性和耐用性。例如，Open City应用程序将寻求利用公共开放数据资源，在全市范围内参与解决共同的问题(例如，卫生、交通和治安)。SOCIAM将进行广泛的综合研究，结合实际应用背景，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尖端理论和实践。它将支持基础研究；创建一个多学科团队；与行业和政府合作实现研究；促进增长和创新--最重要的是--对改变信息和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.