a social environment model of socio-technical performance
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A Social Environment Model of Socio-technical Performance. Brian Whitworth Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, Albany, New Zealand. Socio-technical levels. Homo-Economicus. Individual does what benefits themselves, by reduced effort, increased gain, or both - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
A Social Environment Model of Socio-technical Performance
Brian Whitworth
Institute of Information and Mathematical Sciences, Massey University, Albany, New Zealand
Socio-technical levelsLevel Discipline System Combination Examples
Community Sociology, Politics, Business
Social Socio-technical Systems (STS)
Culture, roles, laws sanctions
Individual Psychology, Biology
Cognitive Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
Attitudes, beliefs, ideas, opinions
Informational Computer Science, Information Science
Software (S/W) Technology
(H/W & S/W)
Programs, data, bandwidth, memory
Physical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry
Physical
Hardware (H/W)
Computer, mouse, wires, printer, keyboard
Table 1. Socio-technical levels
Homo-Economicus
• Individual does what benefits themselves, by reduced effort, increased gain, or both
• Mill’s economic man, who seeks wealth, leisure, luxury and procreation
• Competition for limited resources creates a need for competence
Individuals Competing Model
Figure 1. Individuals competing in a world environment
Rule 1: The Selfish Rule• Freely acting individuals {I1, I2 …} face action
choices {a1, a2 …} with expected individual unit values outcomes {IU(a1), IU(a2), …} follow the rule:
If IU(ai) > IU(aj) an individual should prefer ai over aj Selfish individual choose acts expected to give more value to yourself.
• A defeasible rule • Value includes psychological gains like appreciation,
or social gains like reputation
Homo sociologicus
• Our bodies are cooperative cell colonies, with cancer what happens when cells “defect”
• Ants and bees form massively cooperative societies by genetics - the competing evolutionary unit is the colony not the individual, i.e. Biologists now argue for multi-level selection
• Marx’s communist man
• Social cooperation creates synergy benefits
Communities Cooperating Model
Rule 2: The Social Rule• If a social unit S of { I1, I2 …} individuals faces
social action choices {a1, a2 …} with expected social unit values of {SU(a1), SU(a2), …}, then:
If SU(ai) > SU(aj) then prefer ai over aj
• Socialized individuals choose social acts expected to give more value to the community
Note: Social acts reference social units not individuals, e.g. “defend society” is independent of individual state. Allows social “castes” like worker or soldier
Synergy
• Difference between what individuals produce as a social unit vs what they produce alone
• Trade illustrates positive synergy
• Conflict illustrates negative synergy
• Generally pays individuals to join positive synergy social units, and leave negative ones (they are better off alone)
• A property of the number of interactions, not the number of group members
The Social Dilemma
• While genetics drives ant society, people can choose to follow Rule 1 or 2
• What if Rule 1 conflicts with Rule 2?i.e. what is good for society is not what is good for the individual?
• Only Rule 2 allows synergy gains, but Rule 1 is the primal rule in nature
The Prisoner’s Dilemma
• Prisoners Bill and Bob face two year jail for a crime they did commit
• Each can plea bargain to testify against the other
• If Bill testifies and Bob doesn’t, he walks free and Bob gets 7 years jail
• If both testify, both get six years (one off for testifying).
Bob Years free (Bill/Bob) Cooperate Defect
Cooperate 5/5 0/7 Bill
Defect 7/0 1/1
By Rule 1 it always pays individuals to defect
Other Social Dilemmas
• Tragedy of the commons: – Farmers by a commons with cows and a land plot– If a farmer grazes the commons, his herd grows fat– If all farmers do so, it is overgrazed and dies off– Parallels modern conservation problems
• Volunteer dilemma• Social loafing• False representation, etc, …• Individuals alone can’t solve social dilemmas,
one “do gooder” is just a “sucker”
Social Instability
Valleys of Defection
• Anti-social acts like stealing “short-circuit” synergy gains• Each defection reduces synergy in a cascade effect •Rule 1: Synergy is unstable
Peak of Synergy
Zero-Sum BarrierZero-sum:
Expand your slice – world domination!
Non-Zero-sum:Expand the pie – to expand your slice!
Human civilization somehow achieved massive non-zero-sum gains by non-genetic means
Social Order• In perfect social order all individuals are “one
mind”, cf in a crystal all atoms move as one
• Social anarchy- gas atoms move individually
• A community with social order, by religion, culture or laws, avoids stealing and cheating (social disorder)
• Can solve the social dilemma by following Rule2, but at the expense of freedom/Rule1
• “Barbarians” (Rule 1) vs “Civilization” (Rule 2)
Social inventions • Unfairness. Not inequity—unequal distribution
of outcomes—but not distributing outcomes according to contribution, e.g. that fit adults live idly while others work to support them is unfair
• Justice—punish unfairness so Rule 1 no longer profits—social order plus individual freedom– Social unit transmits world requirements
(accountability)– People have a natural justice perception– Revenge is a primitive form of justice – State justice (police, laws, courts, prisons) aims to
deny unfairness (Rawls, 2001)
Social Hijack
• Individuals take social control for their own ends, just as a virus hijack a cell
• Benevolent dictators (Plato) enforce social order (synergy), then justly return the gains to society
• Dictators keep control by repressing and indoctrinating• Dictatorships are:
– Unstable. Slaves have “nothing to lose but their chains” Marx – Impermanent. Kings, emperors, pharaohs, etc die, leaving a
power vacuum. Bloodline dynasties over time produce incompetent offspring
– Unproductive. In Zimbabwe Mugabe addressed social inequity by driving white farmers off productive farms, then gave them to cronies who looted - turned Zimbabwe from the bread-basket of Africa into the basket-case of Africa.
The golden rules• Do unto others as you would they do unto you• Rabbi Hillel’s sum of all rules: “If you don’t like it
done to you, don’t do it to others”. • Kant’s proposal: “Act only on that maxim by which you
can at the same time will that it become a universal law”, i.e. if everyone does it, is it still successful?
• Pareto’s optimality principle: “Good actions benefit at least one other and do no harm.”
• Rawl’s “veil of ignorance” requires state justice to be “blind” to individual needs.
• Harsanyi rules out immoral or anti-social acts (Harsanyi, 1988).
All encourage free individuals to choose Rule 2
Social environment Model
I1
COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENT
SocialActions
Social Tokens
Cooperation &
Competition
WORLD ENVIRONMENT
Social & Competence Requirements
Social Outcomes
PerformanceRequirements
CompetitionCompetence + Synergy
INDIVIDUAL TECHNICALSUPPORT
SOCIO-TECHNICALSUPPORT
Anti-social acts
Social Barriers & Sanctions
Cheating value
I1 ...
...
...
...
Figure 3. Social environment model
Good Citizen Rule 3Rule 3
a. If {SU(ai) ≥ SU(aj) and IU(ai) > IU(aj)} then prefer ai to aj
Choose acts that don’t harm society significantly, but benefit oneself
ORb. If {IU(ai) ≥ IU(aj) and SU(ai) > SU(aj) } then prefer ai to
aj Choose acts that don’t harm oneself significantly, but benefit
society
Rule 3 is a hybrid of Rule 1 and 2
Self vs Community Choices
COMMUNITY
Gain Minor effect Loss
Gain Synergy Opportunity Anti-social
Minor effect Service Null Malice
S E L F Loss Sacrifice Self-harm Conflict
Rule 3 favors service, synergy and opportunity
Socio-technology
• Online people help others they have not met and may not meet again, Neither Rule 1 nor Rule 3a explain this
• Socio-technical systems succeed by good citizens – “small heroes” doing small selfless acts for others
• That virtue” is productive and supportable by technology is an important social discovery (Benkler & Nissenbaum, 2006)
• Socio-technical systems are a new social form, that change the social focus from denying defection to enabling good citizenship, e.g. open source
Examples
Aim Examples Synergy Defection
Communicate Email, Chat, ListServ, IM
Shared communication: People send messages they otherwise would not
Spam: Spammers waste others time, giving spam filters.
Learn WebCT Moodle Blackboard,
Shared learning: Students help others learn, reduce teacher bottlenecks
Plagiarism: Students copy other student’s work, giving systems like Turnitin.com.
Knowledge Wikipedia, Tiddlywiki
Shared knowledge: Taps knowledge of the group, not just a few ”experts”
Trolls: Wikipedia’s monitors and rights fight “trolls” who damage knowledge.
Friends Facebook, Myspace
Relationships: People keep in touch with friends and family
Predation: Social network predators find victims, giving reporting and banishing
Keeping current
Digg, Del.icio.us
Shared bookmarks: Social bookmarks let people see what others look at.
Advocates: Who “digg” a site because of a vested interest, e.g. they own it.
Play Second Life, MMORPG, Sims
Shared play: An avatar experiences things impossible in reality.
Bullies/Thieves: “Newbies” robbed by veterans don’t return, so need “safe” areas.
Trade E-Bay, Craig’s List, Amazon
Item trading: People from anywhere exchange more goods.
Scams: Scammers are reduced by online reputation systems.
Work Monster Work trading: People find and offer work more easily.
Faking: Padded CVs and fake job offers need online reputation systems.
Down-load Webdonkey, Bit-Torrent Napster,
Shared down-loading: Groups share the processing load of file downloads.
Piracy: Napster was in conflict with society’s copyright laws, so closed down.
Media Sharing
Flickr, YouTube podcasting
Shared experiences: People share photos/videos with family/ friends.
Offensiveness: Editors remove offensive items—violence, porn, scatology…
Advice Tech help boards like, AnandTech
Shared technical advice: People who have solved problems can help others more easily.
Confusers: People who start new tracks rather than checking existing ones are relocated and scolded.
Express opinions
Slashdot, Boing-Boing, Blogs
Shared opinions: People express and read others opinions more easily
Caviling: People who “peck” new ideas to death—karma systems deselect them.
Other applications
• Enron – A higher form of cheating• Credit crunch – A higher form of incompetence (in
risk management)• Social inflation – When social environments ignore
the demands of their environment, and social tokens lose external value, e.g. money (social token) loses value relative to external standard of a loaf of bread
• Rectification –the demands of outer environments ultimately “cascade” over inner ones
Modelling Social Behavior??
• Foxes/Rabbits– Move– Predate– Breed
• Social Foxes/Rabbits– As before PLUS– Combine: If both agree, form
combined unit with double rewards plus synergy
– Defect: If in combined state, • Defector gets plus synergy
• Sucker gets minus synergy
In Rule 2 state each creates others synergy