INSPIRE: Value-Function Handoffs in Human-Machine Compositions that are under Design for the Internet of Things

INSPIRE该INSPIRE项目由社会和经济科学司的科学，技术和社会（STS）计划共同资助，该计划隶属于社会，行为和经济科学局，综合活动办公室（OIA），以及计算机和网络系统司的四个计划，该计划隶属于计算机和信息科学与工程局：安全和可信赖的网络空间（SaTC），网络技术和系统（NetTS），计算机系统研究（CSR），和网络物理系统（CPS）。一般观众摘要这个跨学科的项目汇集了社会科学家，计算机科学家，工程师和设计师参与合作研究项目。该项目的目标是更好地理解涉及相互关联的社会和技术代理的复杂系统中的价值冲突。社会代理可以包括人和组织，技术代理可以包括设备和基础设施。这种系统的一个例子是互联网，一个全球通信网络，允许全世界几乎所有的计算机用户连接和交换信息。当在这样的系统中代理之间存在交互时，存在功能的切换。关于互联网，这样的功能之一是保存信息内容;切换涉及代表诸如可靠性和可信度等特定价值的其他功能。该项目的重点是物联网，互联网的扩展，包括通过网络远程监控和控制的物理设备（如车辆，建筑物和传感设备）。研究团队将在这个更广泛的领域开发三个案例研究：生物传感，智能家居和视觉数据处理。研究小组已经开发出一个初步的价值波动模型。在三个案例研究中，他们将与一位确定的技术研究人员合作，使用模型来塑造技术，并从技术中获得见解来完善他们的模型;通过案例序列发生的众多反馈过程产生的模型版本预计将适用于广泛的社会技术系统。该项目的结果将有助于满足迫切需要，以促进对人类和机器相互关系的严格思考，使事物在整个社会中良好运作，符合人类需求，并为社会价值服务。该项目可能考虑的价值包括安全、隐私、可信度、问责制、透明度、自主权、知识产权、言论和结社自由、正义和公平。如果不能保护价值观，可能会对技术的采用构成障碍，并给社会中最弱势的群体带来负担。这表明，指导价值判断的模型可能至关重要。技术概要研究小组将开发物联网领域社会技术整合研究的三个案例：生物传感、智能家居和视觉数据处理。PI将通过对特定案例的仔细研究来学习，这些案例涉及价值负载函数的实际和潜在的模糊性，并根据其临时模型对其进行表征;反过来，该模型将随着项目的发展而演变。通过三种情况下的反馈迭代后的结果的模型，预计将适用于广泛的社会技术系统。该项目还将促进制定新的工作方法和互动模式，以推动围绕价值观冲突的更一体化、更少反应和对立的进程。除了对流程和方法做出变革性贡献外，该项目还在确定价值如何以及在何处成为技术系统设计的一部分方面做出了变革性的智力贡献，特别是在三个具有社会重要性的技术系统（物联网，传感器和智能家居）中。该项目将带来光明，并解决与真实的世界复杂的社会网络物理系统的设计和开发相结合的伦理，政治和社会问题，使用成熟的见解，高度发达的理论思想，从以前的STS研究。在相反的方向，该项目有可能有助于STS文献和推进STS领域的新见解，从他们的合作经验与技术专家开发真实的世界功能系统，加强和挑战有争议的立场。

INSPIREThis INSPIRE project is co-funded by the Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program in the Social and Economic Sciences Division, which is in the Directorate Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, the Office of Integrative Activities (OIA), and four programs in the Division of Computer and Network Systems, which is in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering: Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC), Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS), Computer Systems Research (CSR), and Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS).General Audience Summary This interdisciplinary project brings together social scientists, computer scientists, engineers, and designers to engage in a collaborative research project. The goal of the project is to obtain a better understanding of value handoffs in complex systems that involve interconnected social and technological agents. The social agents may include humans and organizations, the technological agents may include devices and infrastructures. An example of such a system is the internet, a global communication network that allows almost all users of computers worldwide to connect and exchange information. When there are interactions between agents in such systems, there is a hand off of functions. With regards to the Internet, one such function is the preservation of information content; that handoff involves others that represent specific values such as reliability and trustworthiness. This project focuses on the Internet of things, an extension of the Internet to include physical devices (such as vehicles, buildings, and sensing devices) that are monitored and controlled remotely across that network. The research team will develop three case studies in in this broader domain: bio-sensing, smart homes, and visual data processing. The research team has developed a preliminary model for value handoffs. In each of the three case studies, they will collaborate with an identified technical researcher to use the model to shape the technology, and to gain insights from the technology to refine their model; the version of the model that results from numerous feedback processes that are to occur through the sequence of cases is expected to be applicable to a broad range of socio-technical systems. The results of this project will serve to meet an urgent need to foster rigorous thinking about humans and machines in relation to one another, to making things work well across society, in concert with human need, and in service of societal values. Among the values potentially under consideration in this project are security, privacy, trustworthiness, accountability, transparency, autonomy, intellectual property, freedoms of speech and association, justice, and fairness. Failures to protect value handoffs are likely to pose barriers to technical adoption, and to impose burdens on the least privileged in society. This indicates that models to guide decisions about value handoffs are likely to be of critical importance.Technical Summary The research team will develop three case studies in socio-technical integration research in the domain of the Internet of Things: bio-sensing, smart homes, and visual data processing. The PIs will learn from close study of particular cases about actual and potential handoffs of value-laden functions by characterizing them in terms of their provisional model; in turn, the model will undergo evolution as the project develops. The model that results after a number of feedback iterations through the three cases is expected to be applicable to a broad range of socio-technical systems. The project will also facilitate the development of new methods of work and patterns of interaction that could advance a more integrated and less reactive and oppositional process around value handoffs. In addition to making transformative contributions to process and methodology, the project makes transformative intellectual contributions in identifying how and where values are part of technology systems design, in particular as seen in three socially important technology systems (IoT, sensors, and smart homes). The project will bring to bring to light and address the ethical, political, and societal issues that are enmeshed with the design and development of real world complex socio-cyber-physical systems using insights from mature, highly developed theoretical ideas resulting from prior STS research. In the reverse direction, the project holds potential to contribute to the STS literature and to advance the field of STS field with new insights drawn from their collaborative experiences with technologists developing real world functioning systems, reinforcing and challenging controversial positions.