Citizens 3.0 - Who should control the powerful technologies that govern our lives?

能够通过监控、大数据和人工智能等过程对个人和民主政治产生严重影响的技术正在迅速发展。然而，针对这些技术带来的潜在危害的保护措施尚未提供一致的防御措施。最特别的是，隐私似乎不再是理解这些技术危害的最准确范式。这个项目的目的是传达一个新的和重要的分析，这种强大的技术，一个提供了一种语言，以证明使公民的规则，管理这些技术的有意义的作者。例如，结合大量数据收集和大数据分析，据称CambridgeAnalytica是一家私人数据公司，最近干涉了2016年美国总统大选（Grassegger，Krogerus，2017，Cadwalladr，2018）。其他知名度较低的公司也在这一领域开展业务（Polonski，2017）。这些公司的影响力有多大尚不清楚。然而，有一点是清楚的，那就是以惊人的规模收集、处理和分析个人数据的能力--剑桥分析公司拥有2.3亿美国公民数据的心理特征（Cadwallr，2018）--以及使用深度算法网络来操纵人们收到的信息，以影响他们的民主选择（Polonski in Thorsen et al 2017）。操纵对政治来说并不新鲜，但新的是这些技术所拥有的累积和不受限制的力量，以及它们被谁操纵的不透明性。在当前的情况下，人工智能（AI）领域发展迅速，主要由谷歌的DeepMind和Facebook的AI等私营公司驱动，这些公司有能力编写自己的算法，例如，可以对我们的街道行为进行启发式分析，或者对我们的个人关系进行行为建模，以产生超出人类操作员理解的结果（Bostrom 2014）。我们不仅不确定是谁在收集我们的数据，以影响选举、模拟我们在街上的行为或分析我们的在线关系，而且可能不清楚是什么在这样做，以及为什么这样做。至关重要的是，这可能造成的危害并不取决于它们是否侵犯了我们的隐私。相反，现在看来重要的是，我们作为个人和社会是否对管理技术的规则有任何发言权或理解，这些规则对我们的民主和我们的行为有如此大的影响力。基于一种认为这种类型的权力对自由和民主有害的自由概念，我的项目将提供一个连贯的框架来证明民主控制和利用这些技术中包含的权力的合理性。近几十年来，当代共和主义思想家（Pettit 1997，Skinner 1998，2008）提倡另一种自由观。借鉴新罗马共和主义思想，他们对“不干涉”的自由概念有着不同的理解，而这种理解是对自由和隐私的个人化和基于权利的理解的基础。相反，他们告诉我们，如果我们没有正确理解管理我们的法律，我们不完全知道我们的行为可能会给当局带来的后果，我们在某种程度上不是控制我们生活的规则的作者，那么，我们就会以一种“支配”的方式暴露在专断的权力之下。在这种情况下，不管我们的正式权利如何，我们都是“不自由的”。我的博士后奖学金项目将把这种自由、自治和权力的概念应用于技术，并从一个新的角度来审视技术问题，超越隐私和数据保护，问：如果我们作为个人不是管理这些非常强大的技术的规则的作者，我们真的自由吗？

Technologies that have the capacity to seriously impact upon individuals and democratic politics, through processes such as surveillance, big data and artificial intelligence, develop apace. However, protections against the potential harms brought by such technologies have not yet provided a coherent defence. Most particularly it seems that privacy may no longer be the most accurate paradigm to understand the harms of these technologies. The aims of this project are to communicate a new and important analysis of such powerful technologies, one which provides a language with which to justify making citizens the meaningful authors of the rulesthat govern these technologies. For example, combining mass data collection and big data analysis, it is alleged that CambridgeAnalytica, a private data firm, recently interfered in the US presidential election of 2016 (Grassegger,Krogerus, 2017, Cadwalladr, 2018). Other less well publicised companies operate within this area as well (Polonski, 2017). The extent of the influence these firms have is not yet clear. However, what is clear is the capacity to gather, process and analyse personal data on a staggering scale - Cambridge Analytica has psychological profiles of 230 million US citizens' data (Cadwallr, 2018) - and to use deep algorithmic networks to then manipulate the information people receive in order to influence their democratic choices (Polonski in Thorsen et al 2017). Manipulation is not new to politics, but what is new here is the cumulative and unrestrained power that these technologies have, and the opacity with which, and by whom, they are operated. Into this current scenario comes a rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector, driven primarily by private companies like Google's DeepMind and Facebook's AI, that has the capacity to programme its own algorithms, which can, as an example, conduct heuristic analysis of our street behaviour, or behavioural modelling of our personal relationships, in order to produce results beyond the comprehension of human operators (Bostrom 2014). Not only will we be unsure who is collecting our data in order to influence elections, model our behaviour in the street, or analyse our online relationships, but it may be unclear just what is doing this, and why it is doing it. Crucially, the harms potentially caused by this do not hinge on whether they intrude upon our privacy. Rather, what seems important now is whether we as individuals and as a society have any say in, or understanding of, the rules which govern technologies that can be so influential on our democracies and our behaviour. Drawing on a conception of freedom which considers this type of power as harmful to freedom and democracy, my project will provide a coherent framework to justify democratically controlling and harnessing the power contained in these technologies. Contemporary republicans thinkers (Pettit 1997, Skinner 1998, 2008) have in recent decades promoted an alternative view of freedom. Drawing on neo-roman republican thought, they have shown a different understanding to the 'non-interference' conception of freedom which underpins the individualised and rights based understanding of liberty and privacy. Instead, they tell us, if we do not have a proper understanding of the laws that govern us, we do not fully know the consequences that our behaviour may bring from authorities, and we are not in some way the authors of the rules that control our lives, then, we are exposed to arbitrary power in a way that is 'dominating'. In this situation, regardless of our formal rights, we are 'unfree'. My post-doctoral fellowship project will apply this conception of freedom, self-government and power to technology, and posit the problem of technology from a new angle, beyond privacy and data protections, to ask: if we as individuals are not the authors of the rules that govern these remarkably powerful technologies, are we really free?