Abstract
The exploratory sandbox for blockchain services, Lithopy, provided an experimental alternative to the aspirational frameworks and guidelines regulating algorithmic services ex post or ex ante. To understand the possibilities and limits of this experimental approach, we compared the regulatory expectations in the sandbox with the real-life decisions about an “actual” intrusive service: contact tracing application. We gathered feedback on hypothetical and real intrusive services from a group of 59 participants before and during the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Czech Republic (January, June 2020, and April 2021). Participants expressed support for interventions based on an independent rather than government oversight that increases participation and representation. Instead of reducing the regulations to code or insisting on strong regulations over the code, participants demanded hybrid combinations of code and regulations. We discuss this as a demand for “no algorithmization without representation.” The intrusive services act as new algorithmic “territories,” where the “data” settlers must redefine their sovereignty and agency on new grounds. They refuse to rely upon the existing institutions and promises of governance by design and seek tools that enable engagement in the full cycle of the design, implementation, and evaluation of the services. The sandboxes provide an environment that bridges the democratic deficit in the design of algorithmic services and their regulations.
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source solution, Ministry of Health, and independent oversight
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“Future of RegTech: How to Regulate Algorithms?” Tableau visualization: https://tiny.cc/lithopy
Future of RegTech: How to Regulate Algorithms? Tableau visualization: https://tiny.cc/lithopy
Report I. June 2020 visualization with R of e-Rouska responses: https://les.zcu.cz/eRouska.html; Report III. January 2020 visualization with R of Lithopy responses: https://les.zcu.cz/eRouska3.html;Report II.
Comparison of June 2020 and April 2021 eRouska responses: https://les.zcu.cz/eRouska2.html
Zenodo data on eRouska surveys https://zenodo.org/record/5949422
Contract tracing application https://erouska.cz/
Report I. June 2020 visualization with R of e-Rouska responses: https://les.zcu.cz/eRouska.html
Report III. January 2020 visualization with R of Lithopy responses: https://les.zcu.cz/eRouska3.html#Plot
Tableau Lithopy visualization: https://tiny.cc/lithopy
Report II. Comparison of June 2020 and April 2021 e-Rouska responses: https://les.zcu.cz/eRouska2.html
The sum of all 7 categories made 101% because of rounding.
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Acknowledgements
The work was supported by the Horizon 2020 project “Anticipatory design and ethical framework for Distributed Ledger Technologies (blockchain or DAG) and applications (smart contracts, IoTs and supply chain)” part of Marie Curie Fellowship MCIF 2018-793059.
Funding
The work was supported by the Horizon 2020 project “Anticipatory design and ethical framework for Distributed Ledger Technologies (blockchain or DAG) and applications (smart contracts, IoTs, and supply chain)” part of Marie Curie Fellowship MCIF 2018–793059.
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Denisa Reshef Kera (DRK) conceived the first part of the research (Lithopy sandbox) and designed experiments used in the workshop, while Frantisek Kalvas (FK) designed the second part of the research (eRouska) and gathered the data on that. DRK worked on tableau visualization and interpretation while FK solely completed the visualizations of data in R (eRouska visualizations). They both participated equally in the analysis and interpretation of the data; DK wrote the paper, and FK was active in the revisions. Both authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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University of Salamanca, approval no. 321 of the project “AnticipatoryLedgers: diseño anticipatorio y marco ético para tecnologías de contabilidad distribuida (blockchain o DAG)” in April 14, 2019.
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Kera, D.R., Kalvas, F. No Algorithmization Without Representation: Pilot Study on Regulatory Experiments in an Exploratory Sandbox. DISO 1, 8 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s44206-022-00002-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44206-022-00002-6