A collection of recent works present related aspects of new logics for the development of social media and AI - to faithfully serve individuals and society, and to protect democratic freedoms that are now in growing jeopardy. The core question is "Whom does it serve?"*
This applies to our technology -- first in social media, and now as we build out broader and more deeply impactful forms of AI. It is specifically relevant to our technology platforms, which now suffer from "enshittification" as they increasingly serve themselves at the expense of their users, advertisers, other business partners, and society at large. These works build to focus on how this all comes down to the interplay of individual choice (bottom-up) and social mediation of that choice (top-down, but legitimized from bottom-up). That dialectic shapes the dimension of "whom does it serve?"*
These works focus on how this applies to AI, how the relevance to social media requires deeper remediation than commonly considered, how middleware interoperability for enabling user choice is increasingly being recognized as the technical foundation for remediation, and how freedom (in both natural and digital worlds) is not just a matter of freedom of expression, but of freedom of impression (choice of who to listen to).
Without constant, win-win focus on this essential question of "whom does it serve?" as we develop social media and AI, we risk the dystopia of "Huxwell" (a blend of Huxley's Brave New World and Orwell's 1984).**
- New Perspectives on AI Agentiality and Democracy: "Whom Does It Serve?" (with co-author Richard Whitt, Tech Policy Press, 12/6/24) - Building toward optimal AI relationships and capabilities that serve individuals, society, and freedom requires new perspectives on the functional dimensions of AI agency and interoperability. Agents must develop in two dimensions:
- Agenticity, a measure of capability - what can it do?
- Agentiality, a measure of relationship - whom does it serve?
Three Pillars of Human Discourse (and How Social Media Middleware Can Support All Three) (Tech Policy Press, 10/24/24) - Overview of new framing that strengthens, broadens, and deepens the case for open middleware to address the dilemmas of governing discourse on social media. Human discourse is, and remains, a social process based on three essential pillars that must work together:- Agency
- Mediation
- Reputation
- Shaping the Future of Social Media with Middleware (White Paper)- To be linked here when published (December, 2024), building on the Symposium just below...
- Symposium on Shaping the Future of Social Media with Middleware (4/30/24) - Helped organize this - held at Stanford by Foundation for American Innovation and Stanford Cyber Policy Center with leading thinkers at the nexus of social media, middleware, and public policy. To lead to a comprehensive white paper that offers recommendations and a roadmap for developers, investors, and policymakers..
- New Logics for Governing Human Discourse in the Online Era (CIGI Freedom of Thought Project, 4/25/24) - Pulls together and builds on ideas about how freedom of impression guides freedom of expression without restricting it, and how combining 1) user agency, 2) a restored role for our traditional social mediation ecosystem, and 3) systems of social trust all combine to synergize that process for the online era. It offers a proactive vision of how that can enable social media to become ever more powerful and beneficial "bicycles for our minds."
