Trust Issues
Facebook Fabricates Trust Through Fake Intimacy
How design can make you forget what you’re signing up for
Imagine owning a robot that’s programmed to follow your orders, no matter what. With full predictability guaranteed, you’d be assured of absolute compliance and would never have to utter the anguished words, “Et tu, Beep Boop? I trusted you!”
If someone says, “I don’t trust technology,” she’s probably speaking in overly general terms. If she gets more specific and says, “Well, what I mean is I don’t trust self-driving cars,” she’s still off the mark. This statement really says she’s skeptical of the competence or good faith of self-driving car designers, companies, marketers, safety inspectors, reporters, regulators, or insurers. Her suspicion is that one or more of these parties in the sociotechnical system is putting lives in danger by making unreliable claims about how the cars will perform.
These (and countless other) examples of how we interact with technology show that trust always involves three things: vulnerability, risk, and power. When we offer up our trust, mild and momentary disappointment can follow, as can the tragedy of a betrayal that irrevocably severs ties. Without these risks, trust can’t exist. To be trusting, you have to relinquish control. And tech…
