Automation and responsibility in a digital welfare state

我的研究项目将探讨英国福利国家的自动化及其扩大结构性暴力的能力。我将通过软件询问并发展对软战的理解：用于人口分类和排名的信息技术系统，这些系统使人们能够获得或阻止人们获得生活机会，并导致结构性暴力和间接杀害人口。我将对数字化和/或自动化福利分配过程的系统的开发者、用户和目标进行定性和半结构化访谈，（半）自主系统或福利机器人。我的实地考察将与议会雇用的一线工人，受委托为政府生产软件的公司雇用的（产品）开发人员，以及理想的福利接受者进行接触。当与决策的距离扩大时，责任发生了变化，这与道德行为者不再是机器上的一个齿轮，而是机器本身的转变密切相关，揭示国家和企业合作的文件对公民和居民来说是致命的。尽管我会从查阅这些文件中受益，但目前的情况需要一种理论上的努力，这种努力以后可能转化为对透明度和问责制的立法要求。

My research project will inquire into automation in/of the British welfare state and its ability to scale structural violence. I will interrogate and develop an understanding of soft war through software: information technology systems for population sorting and ranking that enable or prevent access to life opportunities and contribute to structural violence and indirect killing of populations.I will conduct qualitative and semi-structured interviews with developers, users and targets of systems that digitalise and/or automate the process of benefits allocation, (semi)autonomous systems or welfare robots. My fieldwork will engage with front-line workers employed by councils, (product) developers employed by companies commissioned to produce software for governments, and ideally with welfare recipients. When the distance from decision-making enlarges, a change in responsibility happens that is importantly related to the shift when the moral actor is not a cog in the machine, but is the machine itself.Documents that reveal state and corporate collaborations fatal for citizens and inhabitants are hidden from public view. As much as I would benefit from accessing such documents, the current situation demands a theoretical effort that could later translate into legislative demands for transparency and accountability.