Extraterrestrial Contact: Trust

http://www.firstcontact29.blogspot.com/

“Trust is a big part of human interaction. It is perhaps so big a part of how we deal with each other that it may be taken for granted. Trust is seen to include both emotional and cognitive dimensions and to function as a deep assumption underwriting social order.” Lewis and Weigert (1985)


Trust is important to humans. And that begs the question: what role would human trust play in interactions with extraterrestrials, if we make alien First Contact some day? These authors argue that trust is a social reality. But what happens when our human reality collides with an alien reality?


Perhaps the closest we have come to considering the matter of trust in a non-human scenario is a discussion of Artificial Intelligence. Researchers Cristiano Castelfranchi and Yao-Hua Tan (2001) pioneer that concept in “The Role of Trust and Deception in Virtual Societies.” This is from the abstract: “The authors argue that it is important to analyse the role of trust and deception in interactions between agents in virtual societies. In particular, in hybrid situations where artificial agents interact with human agents it is important that those artificial agents can reason about the trustworthiness and deceptive actions of the human counterpart.”


Developing a trust framework for AI to interact with humans can help us better understand trust from an alien perspective. There is the possibility that aliens would value trust. It is an integral part of the development of the human civilization. It would make sense that trust could be an important part of an alien civilization. Humans use trust for essential parts of our society: trade, communal living and governance. Could aliens have developed a complex society without trust? The answer is yes. Just one Star Trek example: Aliens could have a hive mind, which unlike individuals resorting to trust would involve an implicit understanding of each creature as part of the whole hive. Trust may seem odd to such extraterrestrials. Even if aliens do value trust, the concept of trust may be quite different from ours. Trust expectations change from human culture to culture here on Earth. While both Chinese and Americans value trust, they act on it in different ways.

http://www.firstcontact29.blogspot.com/