The document discusses the connection between big data and the sharing economy. It outlines how the sharing economy relies on big data to match buyers and sellers and manage reputations. However, this raises ethical issues regarding privacy, discrimination, and power imbalances between individuals and corporations. The document proposes several solutions from a Buddhist perspective, including ensuring user privacy and transparency from corporations, independent reputation evaluations, and regulations that balance all stakeholders' interests in a fair manner.

1. Big Data and the Sharing
Economy
Ethical Considerations and a Buddhist Perspective

2. Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy and Center for Ethics of Science and Technology,
Chulalongkorn University
Visiting Research Scholar,
Indiana University

3. Outline
▪ Sharing Economy
▪ Big Data
▪ How Are The Two Connected?
▪ Ethical Considerations
▪ Technology and Ethics (Martin & Freeman, 2004)
▪ Transparency as a Political Tool (Flyverbom, 2015)
▪ The Black Box Society (Pasquale, 2015)
▪ Social and Legal Implications
▪ What is happening in China (Management of reputations – Botsman article in Wired)
▪ Buddhist Viewpoint
▪ Management of identity and reputations
▪ Conclusion

4. Sharing Economy
▪ Extensive use of information technology – mobile app, social media
▪ ‘Peer-to-peer’ ideology
▪ Direct contact between buyer and seller, but through intermediary
▪ How this is different from the older form of posting on bulletin boards.
▪ Use of ‘reputation system’ – online reviews, background search
▪ Uber, Airbnb, etc.
▪ Undercutting of the established businesses – ordinary people becoming
business owner
▪ Problem of regulation

5. Big Data
▪ Using social media, we generate a huge amount of data every second.
▪ These data can be analyzed to see many kinds of trends in very different areas.
▪ Wikipedia - Big data is a term for data sets that are so large or complex that traditional
data processing application software is inadequate to deal with them.
▪ “A flood of data is created every day by the interactions of billions of people using
computers, GPS devices, cell phones, and medical devices. Many of these
interactions occur through the use of mobile devices being used by people in the
developing world, people whose needs and habits have been poorly understood
until now. Researchers and policymakers are beginning to realise the potential for
channelling these torrents of data into actionable information that can be used to
identify needs, provide services, and predict and prevent crises for the benefit of
low-income populations. Concerted action is needed by governments, development
organisations, and companies to ensure that this data helps the individuals and
communities who create it.” (World Economic Form 2012)
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_TC_MFS_BigDataBigImpact_Briefing_2012
.pdf

6. How Are The Two Connected?
▪ The sharing economy actually needs big data.
▪ Management of information pertaining to individuals and segments of
population. Matching buyers and sellers together through the intermediary.
▪ Credit histories, reputations, reviews
▪ Big data is best used for making predictions – people tend to do things
repeatedly – we can predict what an individual is like to do next based on what
they have done in the past – groups or segments of people are the same.
▪ The predictions are useful for the sharing economy.
▪ The Sharing Economy - What It Is, Examples, And How Big Data, Platforms
And Algorithms Fuel It – Forbes.com

7. But there are problems…

19. Trust and Reputation

20. Management of Trust and Reputation
▪ Big data can help.
▪ Personal data showing how trustworthy an individual is.
▪ Trust without the authorities – personal relations, personal histories
▪ But the authorities can help through legal means and regulations.
▪ Authorities can help redress those who would have been considered less
desirable, or discriminated against.
▪ Regulation of the operation of the providers, behavior of the consumers and
operation of the intermediary.

21. http://www.wired.co.
uk/article/chinese-
government-social-
credit-score-privacy-
invasion

22. What I Would Like to Argue
▪ Online reputation is part of the online self (Hongladarom, 2016).
▪ The latter is an extension of one’s own traditional self – Clark and Chalmers’
extended mind thesis
▪ Buddhist analysis of the self – externalism – instead of constituted through
internal elements, the self is constituted and recognized as such by external
factors.
▪ Ethical considerations – what happens when an extension of one’s own self
(one’s personal data) is analyzed and manipulated by unknown algorithms is
that we lose control of our data and the balance of power between individual
and the corporation (as well as the state) is tilting toward the latter. This does
not bode well for democracy.

23. What I Would Like to Argue
▪ So instead of letting ourselves by evaluated as to our online reputations, we
should also evaluate these corporations and sharing platforms, assessing their
reputations and sharing the information online.
▪ This requires an independent platform, but this must be provided by the
political authorities.
▪ Virtual monopoly of Facebook – In the past the US did a very good thing by
breaking up monopolies, so they should do the same with Facebook (which has
in effect become the only platform for social interaction.
▪ The same goes for Uber, Airbnb and others large platforms.
▪ Most serious conflict – these platforms (based in the US) versus national
governments and these platforms versus local businesses. A way needs to be
found the two sides to work together, creating a win-win situation.

24. What I Would Like to Argue
▪ In Thailand and many other places the line between individuals sharing their
homes and those who intend to operate a hotel business professionally is very
thin.
▪ Uber advertises that ordinary people can share their cars with their friends, but
in reality it’s the taxi drivers or the poorer people from the countryside hiring a
car from a taxi company and get on Uber.
▪ Ethical concerns

25. Conceptual Tools
▪ Technology and ethics (Martin and Freeman, 2004)
▪ Transparency as an Ordering Tool (Flyverbom, 2015)
▪ The Black Box Society (Pasquale, 2015)

26. Ethical Considerations: Reputation and Big
Data
▪ Reputation analysis can threaten the integrity of the self.
▪ It can be discriminatory and can invade an individual’s privacy.
▪ Collecting information of an individual gives undue power to the corporation.
▪ Potential conflict between the corporation and the political authority regarding
control of personal information.
▪ Political authority can become a player in online reputation – Situation in China.
▪ Analytics of the population can become oppressive – tool of a totalitarian regime – Big
Brother!
▪ The technology can be a hegemonic tool, giving too much power to corporations in
relation to national governments and local businesses.
▪ Line between genuine sharing among peer and typical business between consumer
and service provider – service provider tends to get on the bad end of the deal.

27. What Corporations Should Do…
▪ Be more open and transparent, especially as regards their own inner working and
their algorithm
▪ Be more responsive to the needs for regulation in certain areas
▪ Ensure privacy of the users – privacy protection measure should be the default
▪ Be a more responsible stakeholder in society
▪ Take care of the drivers (in case of Uber)
▪ Make sure that it is a case of genuine sharing.
▪ Follow local legislation and regulations, but not when those local rules are
oppressive.
▪ Google and Facebook know more about us than we do ourselves, so they need to be
extra careful.

28. What Governments Should Do…
▪ Pass regulation legislation that serves the interest of all involved in a fair
manner
▪ Sharing economy works on the basis of the belief that government involvement
should be minimal. But though minimal their work is necessary
▪ Regulation of the internet as a whole – maintenance of the gateway – regulation of the
radio wave
▪ How should the sellers (Airbnb hosts) and the platform (Airbnb itself) be taxed?
▪ Problem of taxing overseas corporations (Airbnb does not headquarter in Thailand)
▪ The guests themselves should also pay their taxes (value added tax).
▪ Act on behalf of the people and protect their rights and interests.

29. Proposal from a
Buddhist
Perspective

30. Proposals…
▪ Reputations are part of one’s own conception of the self
▪ Privacy is justified according its role in constituting the kind of society that we
find desirable
▪ Profiling people needs to be done with the protection their rights dignity in
mind.
▪ Negative profiling should be kept strictly confidential.
▪ And there has to be a floor (below which no one is allowed to go)
▪ Principle of interdependence of all things
▪ Ethical naturalism and pragmatism