IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021 - 7

issue is that some facet(s) of public interest can
be specified as " supra-functional " requirements
distinct from functional and nonfunctional requirements.
Systems can then be designed, for example,
using methodologies like value-sensitive design
[7]-[9] and operationalized [10], [11], to produce
socio-technical solutions to support or complement
policies which address, for example, environmental
sustainability, social justice, or public health. Such
systems are then deployed in order to promote the
public interest or enable users to act (individually
and at scale) in a way which is in the public interest
toward individual and communal empowerment.
Such deployment needs to be sensitive, though, to
a kind of " social quantum effect: " adding a technology
to a social system (and observing and measuring
it) changes the nature of the system itself, often
with unintended consequences [12]. Software engineering
methodologies for socio-technical systems,
especially those using artificial intelligence, currently
lack a deep understanding of the sociological,
ethnographical, and anthropological science underlying
public administration and public sector work
[13], but some technology developers do have an
effective grasp of behavioral psychology [14], [15].
Citizen assemblies and
performative governance
In conjunction with being a social construct
that is difficult to define, the use of behavioral psychology
in technological development exposes an
exploitable weakness, whereby the concept of public
interest is amenable to manipulation, in its " definition, "
" actualization, " and " metrication. " But, as
has been discussed, there are no absolute answers
to who determines what the public interest is or who
is to decide what is in the public interest, or even
who is the gatekeeper or guardian of the public
interest. Unsurprisingly then, the term " public interest "
has, like the terms " social capital " and " public
school " 1 been misrepresented, somewhat hijacked,
by private interests who repackage their own interests
as the public interest itself.2 Consequently, some
economists, sociologists, and political scientists use
alternative terms, preferring, for example, to talk of
" conceptual resources " rather than " social capital. "
1 In the U.K., in the context of " school, " " public " means " private. "
2 Almost unthinkable, really: it's as if a petrochemical company repackaged itself as
an environmental concern, or a tobacco company repurposed itself as a wellbeing
company.
As a result, and especially in countries led by populist
leaders (whose electoral appeal may be based
on polarization [16], [17] through false narratives,
fictive scaremongering and the relentless promulgation
of " alternative facts " ), not just technologies but
also policies may be designed and intended to create
distortion, diminution, distraction, or division of
the " public interest. " This may be achieved either
covertly, through the enactment of laws designed
to entrench established power relationships or to
advance oligarchic interests, or more overtly, through
programs whose only intention is performative, that
is, national gaslighting through policies which are
intended to create headlines and stoke division,
rather than deal with difficult evidence-based choices
or costly investment in solutions which might actually
address a wicked problem. This is particularly evident
in criminal justice, immigration, education, climate
change, and, of course, public health.
Performative governance of this kind can also
have a restrictive, even malicious, influence on technological
development. For example, the recent U.K.
Elections Bill [18] proposes a form of what might be
called n-tuple entry bookkeeping. This is because
the bill imposes financial constraints on any organizations
involved in plans which " can reasonably
be regarded as intended to achieve a common purpose, "
since the total expenditure is to be counted
toward the expenditure of each and every organization
that is party to that common purpose. For a
moment, leave aside the usual criticism of poorly
drafted legislation, for example, the introduction of
the ill-defined and purely subjective word " reasonable "
into a legal context, and even leave aside the
tendentious intent to disempower opposition and
entrench the drafter's own political authority [19].
More disconcerting is the implicit animosity toward
collective action, in general, and how this provides a
façade for a shoulder-shrug approach to public policy:
" we have to learn to live with " a pandemic, climate
change, and so on. Most disconcerting is how
this kind of legislation could have a chilling effect on
the numerous socio-technical initiatives to advance
collective action through online citizen assemblies
[20]-[23]. If the use of such technology can be designated
as achieving a " a common purpose " and
therefore be subject to financial restrictions, then
it will compel many organizations to rethink their
involvement and engagement with such a potentially
valuable PIT. Simply, this is not what we want.
September 2021
7
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - September 2021

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