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，针对此类技术带来的潜在危害的保护措施尚未提供连贯的防御。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例。该项目的目的是传达对这些强大技术的一种新的重要分析，这种分析提供了一种语言，可以证明让公民成为管理这些技术的规则的有意义的作者是合理的。例如，将大量数据收集和大数据分析相结合，据称私人数据公司CambridgeAnalytica最近干涉了2016年美国总统大选（Grassegger,Krogerus, 2017, Cadwalladr, 2018）。其他不太知名的公司也在这一领域开展业务（Polonski, 2017）。这些公司的影响程度尚不清楚。然而，可以明确的是，它有能力以惊人的规模收集、处理和分析个人数据——剑桥分析公司拥有2.3亿美国公民数据的心理概况（Cadwallr, 2018）——并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，但这里的新事物是这些技术所具有的累积和不受限制的权力，以及操作它们的不透明，以及由谁操作。在目前的情况下，快速发展的人工智能（AI）领域出现了，主要由b谷歌的DeepMind和Facebook的AI等私营公司推动，这些公司有能力为自己的算法编程，例如，可以对我们的街头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、模仿我们在街头的行为，或分析我们的网络关系，而且可能不清楚到底是什么在这么做，以及为什么这么做。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。更确切地说，现在看来重要的是，作为个人和社会，我们是否对那些对我们的民主和我们的行为有如此大影响的技术的管理规则有发言权，或者理解这些规则。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是合理的。当代共和党思想家（佩蒂特1997年，斯金纳1998年，2008年）在最近几十年提出了另一种自由观。借鉴新罗马共和思想，他们对自由的“不干涉”概念有了不同的理解，这种概念是对自由和隐私的个体化和基于权利的理解的基础。相反，他们告诉我们，如果我们对支配我们的法律没有正确的理解，我们不完全知道我们的行为可能给当局带来的后果，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”的方式暴露在专制的权力之下。在这种情况下，不管我们有什么正式的权利，我们都是“不自由的”。我的博士后研究项目将把这种自由、自治和权力的概念应用于技术，并从一个新的角度，超越隐私和数据保护，来假设技术的问题：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?