Human Trust and the Machine: Transnational Online Business in China

• In Event: Artificial Intelligence and Cognition as Social Praxis

Abstract

How do people and machines collaborate to create technical systems augmented by humans, that are able to overcome the limits of both? Starting from Lave & Wenger’s observation that “understanding the technology of practice is more than learning to use tools; it is a way to connect with the history of the practice and to participate more directly in its cultural life” (Lave & Wenger, 1991:101), this paper analyzes the role of humans on AI-powered e-commerce platforms in China – Chinese systems that target Chinese consumers. Its goal is to understand why platforms that can provide a seamless online experience without any human friction point do in fact need humans to function, and how the role of humans is connected with the specific historical and social conditions of China. Specifically, humans are necessary to create an element of trust in both the products sold and the platforms used, as recent years have seen, in China, a complete break-down of trust on public and private institutions and among people. If “abstract representations are meaningless unless they can be made specific to the situation at hand” (Lave & Wenger, 1991: 33), what are we to learn from the social practices that make technological platforms usable? Does the “history and technology of practice” imply that, indeed, AI-powered platforms developed in China will be different from those developed in India, as AI is, in fact, a representation of socio-cultural practices, rather than simply a rational and abstract set of rules?

Author

• e oreglia