In this chapter, we turn our attention to the effects of the attention economy on our ability to act autonomously as a group. We begin by clarifying which sorts of groups we are concerned with, which are structured groups (groups sufficiently organized that it makes sense to attribute agency to the group itself). Drawing on recent work by Purves and Davis (2022), we describe the essential roles of trust (i.e., depending on groups to fulfill their commitments) and trustworthiness (i.e., the (...) property of a group that makes trusting them fitting) in autonomous group action, with particular emphasis on democratic institutions (which we view as group agents) and democratic legitimacy (which depends on trust and trustworthiness). We then explain how engagement maximization promotes polarization, which is detrimental to trust and trustworthiness and, in turn, democratic legitimacy and democratic institutions. We close by considering what groups might do to protect themselves from the threat posed to them by the attention economy. (shrink)

This essay offers a philosophical analysis of the increased rates of hesitancy among Black Americans regarding treatment for Covid-19. I argue that public health researchers have identified epistemic norms pertaining to the credibility and trustworthiness of public health institutions in Black communities. In other words, norms of credibility have developed in Black communities as a result of the mistreatment of Black Americans by public health institutions and organizations. To make this argument, Section 2 argues that the “origin” or historical circumstances (...) regarding the emergence of an institution are salient to the formation of institutional trust. Section 3 develops an account of epistemic normativity as derived from the work of Antti Kauppinen, Miranda Fricker, and Catherine Elgin. Section 4 applies the arguments from the previous sections to show that absent a “clean origin,” norms of credibility regarding institutional functionality have formed in Black communities that have prevented medical treatment for Covid-19. (shrink)

A summary of the philosophical literature on trust.

Should we be worried that the concept of trust is increasingly used when we assess non-human agents and artefacts, say robots and AI systems? Whilst some authors have developed explanations of the concept of trust with a view to accounting for trust in AI systems and other non-agents, others have rejected the idea that we should extend trust in this way. The article advances this debate by bringing insights from conceptual engineering to bear on this issue. After setting up a (...) target concept of trust in terms of four functional desiderata (trust-reliance distinction, explanatory strength, tracking affective responses, and accounting for distrust), I analyze how agential vs. non-agential accounts can satisfy these. A final section investigates how ‘non-ideal’ circumstances—that is, circumstances where the manifest and operative concept use diverge amongst concept users—affect our choice about which rendering of trust is to be preferred. I suggest that some prominent arguments against extending the language of trust to non-agents are not decisive and reflect on an important oversight in the current debate, namely a failure to address how narrower, agent-centred accounts curtail our ability to distrust non-agents. (shrink)

With focus on the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in the digital health context, we consider the following questions: How does the European Union (EU) seek to facilitate the development and uptake of trustworthy AI systems through the AI Act? What does trustworthiness and trust mean in the AI Act, and how are they linked to some of the ongoing discussions of these terms in bioethics, law, and philosophy? What are the normative components of trustworthiness? And how (...) do the requirements of the AI Act relate to these components? We first explain how the EU seeks to create an epistemic environment of trust through the AI Act to facilitate the development and uptake of trustworthy AI systems. The legislation establishes a governance regime that operates as a socio-epistemological infrastructure of trust which enables a performative framing of trust and trustworthiness. The degree of success that performative acts of trust and trustworthiness have achieved in realising the legislative goals may then be assessed in terms of statutorily defined proxies of trustworthiness. We show that to be trustworthy, these performative acts should be consistent with the ethical principles endorsed by the legislation; these principles are also manifested in at least four key features of the governance regime. However, specified proxies of trustworthiness are not expected to be adequate for applications of AI systems within a regulatory sandbox or in real-world testing. We explain why different proxies of trustworthiness for these applications may be regarded as ‘special’ trust domains and why the nature of trust should be understood as participatory. (shrink)

What is the nature and what is the role of trust between teacher and student in academic education at school? Providing a philosophically informed answer to these questions is the aim of this paper. In its first part, I present a relationship account of trust based on two fundamental assumptions: first, trust between teacher and student is essentially about them being in a trust relationship, and second, the reasons for trust are relationship dependent. The second part explores the role of (...) trust by looking at two aspects of academic education at school: the student's acquisition of knowledge from the teacher's testimony and the student's development of epistemic confidence, the latter being a key constituent of competent epistemic agency. Drawing on findings from developmental psychology, I explain how trust is involved in successful academic education at school. My aim is to provide a detailed conception of trust in the teacher–student relationship, as well as a conclusive argument for the importance and the value of trust in academic education at school. (shrink)