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Social machine demo
A social machine is an environment comprising humans and technology interacting and producing outputs or action which would not be possible without both parties present.
Contents
Book talk judith donath on the social machine
Concept
Social machines blur the lines between computational processes and input from humans. They often take the form of collaborative online projects which produce web content, such as Wikipedia, citizen science projects like Galaxy Zoo, and even social networking site such as Twitter have also been defined as social machines. However, a social machine does not necessarily produce outcomes which directly affect the individuals or machines involved and an alternative viewpoint states that Social Machines are "rather than being an intentionally engineered piece of software - the substrate of accumulated human cross-system information sharing activities".
An academic field investigating the idea has been active since Tim Berners-Lee's book Weaving the web. Social machines are characterised as 'social systems on the Web ... computational entities governed by both computational and social processes'.
Real life is and must be full of all kinds of social constraint – the very processes from which society arises. Computers can help if we use them to create abstract social machines on the Web: processes in which the people do the creative work and the machine does the administration. The stage is set for an evolutionary growth of new social engines.