The social construction of “Shared Reality” in socio-technical systems

Abstract

As the size, complexity and ubiquity of socio-technical systems increases, there is a concomitant expectation that humans will have to establish and maintain long-lasting ‘relationships’ with many types of digital artefact: for example with humanoid robots, driverless cars or software agents running on ‘smart’ devices. Rather than being limited to one-off interactions, these relationships will continue over longer time frames, correspondingly increasing the likelihood of errors occurring from numerous causes. When digital errors occur, often complete human mistrust and distrust is the outcome. The situation is exacerbated when the computer can make no act of reparation and no avenue of forgiveness is open to the human. In the pursuit of designing long-lasting socio-technical systems that are fit-for purpose, this position paper reviews past work in relevant social concepts and, based on the sociological theory of social constructivism, proposes a new approach to the joint human-computer construction of a “shared reality”.