With „Gamified Control – China’s Social Credit Systems“ I am invited to deliver the keynote on this years „ML Conference – The Conference for Machine Learning Innovation“ in Munich. Gamified Control meets machine learning developers.
The talk can be watched on Google’s Youtube video platform. Because of Google’s business and data-grabbing practices I will only post the link.
In 2014 China’s government announced the implementation of big data based social credit systems (SCS). The SCS will rate online and offline behavior to create a score for each individual and company. Functioning on gamification, they combine powerful tools to influence its users.
Today governmental and commercial SCS exist, the government was cited to become world leader of SCS and in 2020 at least one of these systems will be mandatory. While the official goal of the SCS is to level economic development and to bring harmony, sincerity and trust to the whole country, the question is what the “side effects” might be. It displays the ramification of huge amounts of information provided via ICTs and so-called “social media”. They demonstrate possible consequences of the combination of big data and nearly endless storage on the one hand and evaluation by algorithms, artificial intelligence and deep learning on the other.
China’s SCS are seen as examples of a tendency that exists in most countries: the attempt to solve social problems with technology. This leads to the question how critical thinking and societies themselves can develop in a reality that is constantly rating behavior to create a score that will be defining vast parts of our life.
Description
In 2014 China’s government announced the implementation of big data based social credit systems (SCS). The SCS will rate online and offline behavior to create a score for each individual and company. Functioning on gamification, they combine powerful tools to influence its users.
Today governmental and commercial SCS exist, the government was cited to become world leader of SCS and in 2020 at least one of these systems will be mandatory. While the official goal of the SCS is to level economic development and to bring harmony, sincerity and trust to the whole country, the question is what the “side effects” might be. It displays the ramification of huge amounts of information provided via ICTs and so-called “social media”. They demonstrate possible consequences of the combination of big data and nearly endless storage on the one hand and evaluation by algorithms, artificial intelligence and deep learning on the other.
China’s SCS are seen as examples of a tendency that exists in most countries: the attempt to solve social problems with technology. This leads to the question how critical thinking and societies themselves can develop in a reality that is constantly rating behavior to create a score that will be defining vast parts of our life.
Katika Kühnreich – Political Scientist and China Scientist
The Political Scientist and China Scientist Katika Kühnreich studied in Germany and China. Her research topics include the social impact of digitization, political programs and their implementation in China, as well as social movements and the state’s handling of dissent. The planning and introduction of digital social credit systems in China has been her research focus for several years. Since her lecture at the 34th Chaos Communication Congress, she has been a sought-after expert on this topic. In her thesis she examined the program of the “Harmonious Society” under the title “The External Harmonization of Internal Uprisings -‘Harmonious Society’ and ‘Mass Incidents’” the state’s handling of uprisings in China.