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。我将通过软件审问和发展对软件战争的理解：用于人口分类和排名的信息技术系统，这些系统允许或阻止获得生活机会，并有助于结构性暴力和间接杀害人口。我将对福利分配过程数字化和/或自动化的系统、(半)自主系统或福利机器人的开发人员、用户和目标进行定性和半结构化的采访。我的实地工作将与受雇于议会的一线工人、受雇于受委托为政府生产软件的公司的(产品)开发人员打交道，最好是与福利接受者打交道。当与决策的距离扩大时，责任就会发生变化，这与这种转变密切相关，因为道德行为者不是机器上的一个齿轮，而是机器本身。揭示国家和企业合作对公民和居民来说是致命的文件被隐藏在公众视线之外。尽管我将从查阅这些文件中受益良多，但目前的情况需要理论上的努力，这种努力稍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.