Design philosophy for platformed relations

Project description

The ongoing digitisation across all sectors of society, including its new data-driven modes of production and forms of artificial intelligence, has radically transformed the ways in which things are made and the roles that they play. Design frameworks that have long been central are no longer able to cope with the new elements, dynamics, and forms of complexity that this entails. The purpose of this research programme is to investigate the conceptual and methodological frameworks that are now needed to make sense of the present situation and guide responsible design intervention. It continues the line of research from the project “Design Philosophy for Things That Change,” funded by the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation (the first instance in which they funded design research), in parallel to the DCODE MSCA ITN that aims to further develop these future foundations of design for a digital society through a European doctoral training network.

Digitisation now stretches into every area of life and society, relating to everything from our own bodies to public space and societal infrastructures. Digital connected things now powerfully shape our forms of life. There is a pressing need to ask not only what is technically possible, but what is desirable in terms of how it might support diverse good lives and possibilities for collective flourishing that are sustainable over time. One of the most significant aspects of contemporary sociotechnical systems is that they are powered by enormous amounts of data and driven by economic imperatives to extract profitable insights (typically in the form of predictions about behaviour). There is thus a direct connection between the role and function of things people use and the operations of the larger systems in which they are embedded. At the same time, these things now have quite active forms of artificial intelligence, agency, and capacities to sense and respond. They do not just sit still waiting for humans to pick them up and put them to use, but actively adapt to and invite particular kinds of use. Often, the use that is encouraged is powerfully shaped by the economic imperatives of larger platforms that reward effective prediction and control.

Everyday connected things have become key sites for the production of data, enabling corporate platform operators to predict, nudge, and control in service of enormous profit. These dynamics have been conceptualised in terms of surveillance capitalism (Zuboff 2019), platform capitalism (Srnicek 2017), data markets that reinvent capitalism (Mayer-Schönberger and Ramge 2018), data colonialism (Couldry and Mejias 2019), platform society (vanDijck, Poell, and deWaal 2018), and computing the everyday (Alaimo and Kallinikos 2017). Given both current practices and developmental trajectories as well as the possible legitimate benefits of data-driven processes, these overall practices and dynamics seem likely to continue in some form for the foreseeable future. There are still a wide range of possibilities for exactly how this happens—some potentially desirable, others far less so. However, there are what might be seen as certain baseline requirements for platform companies’ social licence to operate legitimately. These arguably include some version of meaningful informed consent and reasonable freedom of choice when it comes to the aspects of one’s life that are rendered as data, and to what purposes and for whose value that data is utilised. There is thus a need to figure out good ways of negotiating and configuring modes of value generation for multiple parties, as well as their governance and ongoing negotiation and development over time.

While there are key roles for regulation here, and for resistance and activism, there are also significant challenges for design. There is a need for desirable alternatives adequate to the sociotechnical complexity at hand that would enable people who use these things to be able to negotiate their participation in data economies in ethically-informed and effective ways. Rather than independent use occurring after point of sale, engagement with connected things entails ongoing relations over time between producers and consumers, generators and users of behavioural data (Wiltse 2020). The things themselves are fluid assemblages (Redström and Wiltse 2019): constantly changing over time and in response to contexts, and assembled from a variety of physical and digital, local and networked components. Significantly, end users of these things are often themselves used, subject to exploitation and the subjects of real-time tests and operations aimed at optimising their behaviour for others’ ends. These dynamics might be driven by technocratic assumptions paired to powerful economic incentives rather than an evil and power-hungry villain. Yet they are still profoundly anti-democratic (Zuboff 2019) and may also challenge the human capacity for self-direction and choosing of desired ends, even as they can make the means of many everyday activities dramatically easier (Gransche 2020).

Objectives

The aim of this research programme is to articulate and explore the notion of mediating platformed relations. Platformed relations are a new form of technological mediation in which digitally connected things provide value for end users through use but also contribute to generating other forms of value for other stakeholders in the system because of the data that is produced through and about that use. Significantly, the economic incentives of these latter forms of value generation powerfully shape the types of use that are made available for end users, and tune them toward producing increasing streams of behavioural data.

The research thus aims to investigate these dynamics of fluid assemblages by linking properties of things and available modes of interaction with and through them to the ways in which they mediate interaction and participation in larger platforms, thereby also mediating platformed relations among various actors and interests as one of their primary (but backgrounded) functions. There are two parts to this. The first relates to how these platformed relations can be negotiated (or not) by end users, while the second considers the broader political implications of enrolling people into particular sociotechnical systems and modes of value generation through the things they use as part of everyday practices. The key question that comes into view then is: If the things we design and deploy entail political gatherings where decisions are made that shape or even determine forms of life (Heidegger 1971; Winner 1986; Binder et al. 2011), how might the connected things and platforms we now live with be ethically (re)designed to support (posthuman) sociotechnical futures worth wanting (Vallor 2016)?

The working hypothesis is that design inquiry and intervention could be a powerful mode of engaging with pressing issues related to current technological developments and configurations, but that current theories, methodologies, and practices are thus far underdeveloped when it comes to data-driven systems and their new forms of artificial intelligence and agency. Working through design philosophy to develop future foundations of design is thus an appropriate approach for investigating, illuminating, and directing this potential.

Methodology

There are generally three types of questions or concerns addressed in this research programme: conceptual, methodological, and propositional. The conceptual question is: How might terms of service and other frameworks and mechanisms governing digital connected things be reconceptualised and reframed such that they can support effective negotiation and management of the multiple forms of use and forms of value generated? The methodological question is: How might these issues around terms of service and other governance mechanisms, as well as more generally the role of large platforms in society, be effectively opened up as an issue for public debate and intentional design? And the propositional question is: What might be preferable alternatives for mechanisms governing relations with and through things?

The overall methodological approach is highly interdisciplinary but grounded in design philosophy, investigating and articulating central issues and concerns. In particular, the sub-field of philosophy known as postphenomenology, as well as object-oriented philosophy, feminist technoscience, and critical technology studies inform the conceptual and methodological work. Specifically, I intend to build on my own previous work and successful approach of collecting and analysing small cases of connected things and systems as the basis for both theory development and eventual communication. Approaches in design will be used when developing and communicating proposals for alternatives, drawing in particular on and developing existing research through design, speculative design, and practice-based design methodologies.

Expected Results

The objectives and intended outcomes of the research programme are: 1) developed design theory that can more adequately account for the character and role of platformed relations and multiple ‘user’ positions; 2) a design approach to framing and exposing central issues around generation of multiple forms of value and making them understandable to affected stakeholders; and 3) proposals for real alternatives for understanding, negotiating, managing, and governing platformed relations.