Mediated trust, the internet and artificial intelligence: Ideas, interests, institutions and futures

Abstract

This paper addresses the question of trust in communication, or mediated trust, with regard to the historical evolution of the Internet and, more recently, debates around the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI). At a conceptual level, it proposes a ‘Three I's’ framework of ideas, interests, and institutions as a way of understanding how and why current proposals for greater regulation of digital platforms counterpose questions around credibility and social licence for digital tech giants against a dominant set of ideas around the Internet as a privileged domain of free speech. By contrast, the rise of AI comes at a time when data-driven business models associated with dominant platform businesses are in the ascendancy, so institutional arrangements need to be considered as a form of countervailing power to the capacity of tech giants to use AI to further consolidate forms of economic, political and communications power.