Social Technology
by Marti A. Hearst
We are in the midst of extraordinary
change in how people interact with one
another and with information. A
combination of advances in technology
and change in people's expectations is
altering the way products are sold,
scientific problems are solved, software
is written, elections are conducted, and
government is run.
People are social animals, and as Shirky
notes, we now have tools that are
flexible enough to match our in-built
social capabilities. Things can get
done that weren't possible before
because the right expertise, the missing
information, or a large enough group of
people can now be gathered together at
low cost.
These developments open a number of
interesting questions for NSF and CISE.
What are the key research problems? How
should these developments change how
research is conducted? How can the
intersection of social science and
technology research be aided or
improved? And how should this effect
how NSF researchers get involved with
relevant government efforts, including
transparent government, emergency
response, and citizen science?
In this talk I attempt to summarize
and put some structure around some of
these developments.
