Socm wshop 2013

WWW2013 Workshop

SOCIAL MACHINES

Nigel Shadbolt

Framing the Context for

SOCIAL MACHINES

Nigel Shadbolt

The order of social machines

Real life is and must be full of all kinds of social constraint – the very processes from which society arises. Computers can help if we use them to create abstract social machines on the Web: processes in which the people do the creative work and the machine does the administration… The stage is set for an evolutionary growth of new social engines.

Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web, 1999

More people

Mor

e m

achi

nes Big Data

Big Compute

Conventional Computation

Social Machines

SocialNetworking

The order of social machines

The order of social machines

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

(i) problems solved by the scale of human participation on the Web

(ii) timely mobilisation and of people, technology and information resources

(iii) incentive to participate with which increases as more participate

(iv) access to or else the ability to generate large amounts of relevant data

(v) confidence in the quality of the data(vi) trust in the agents and process (vii) intuitive interfaces and user-centred(viii) works cross platform(ix) efficient, effective and equitable(x) exploits the power of open - Open Source,

Open Standards, Open Data, Open Licences

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

What are these Social Machines…

• From the routine and mundane to the extraordinary…

• All aspects of our lives…• Augmenting our intelligence…• Augmenting our machines…• We barely know how to

– Describe them– Classify them– Design them– Anticipate them– Observe them

Social Machine Ecosystems• Social machines do not exist in

isolation• Ecology of Social Machines -

structure of the environment, food chains, producers and consumers

• Evolutionary elements - populations (individuals and species), traits/characteristics, heredity, genotypes and phenotypes

• Evolutionary mechanisms - variation (mutation, migration, HGT, genetic drift), selection

• Evolutionary outcomes - adaption, co-evolution, competition, co-operation, speciation, extinction

Social Machine Ecosystems• Social machines do not exist in

isolation• Ecology of Social Machines -

structure of the environment, food chains, producers and consumers

• Evolutionary elements - populations (individuals and species), traits/characteristics, heredity, genotypes and phenotypes

• Evolutionary mechanisms - variation (mutation, migration, HGT, genetic drift), selection

• Evolutionary outcomes - adaption, co-evolution, competition, co-operation, speciation, extinction

Social Machines are NOT Turing Machines

• they do contain conventional algorithmic components

• but much else is different• a social machine will start with an incomplete

specification that grows and evolves to cover more of the problem via interaction

• a social machine achieves participation through local incentives which become reinforced as the…

• incentive for an individual to supply data to the algorithm increases as more individuals participate

• a social machine has a notion of completeness that is a social rather than mathematical issue

• a social machine will not usually have a notion of the correct output or termination… rather it runs continuously

Social Machine Trends

• The power of people• The power of open• The power of machines• The power of data• Scale and network

effects• Ruthlessly Darwinian

What might Social Machines do in future…

• Coordinate 10 million people to stop crime?• Millions of people supporting themselves and others in

the delivery of efficient transportation?• Or any scale of people supporting themselves and others

in the delivery of well being?• If we can put a man on the moon with 100,000 humans

what can we do with 100,000,000 humans and the largest compute and data fabric in history?

• Social machines to delight and empower, absorb and empower…