Trust, Control and Autonomy: A Dialectic Relationship - Trust Theory: A Socio-Cognitive and Computational Model - page 186

We will show how, depending on the circumstances, control makes Y more reliable or less
reliable; control can either decrease or increase Y 's trustworthiness and the internal trust. We
will also analyze two kinds of control, characterized by two different functions: pushing or
influencing control aimed at preventing violations or mistakes, versus safety, correction or
adjustment control aimed at preventing failure or damages after a violation or a mistake.
A good theory of trust cannot be complete without a good theory of control and of their
reciprocal interactions.

7.1.1 To Trust or to Control? Two Opposite Notions
The relation between trust and control is very important and perhaps even definitory; however
it is everything but obvious and linear. On the one hand, some definitions delimit trust precisely
thanks to being its opposite. But it is also true that monitoring and guarantees make me more
confident when I do not have enough trust in my partner. And what is confidence if not a
broader form of trust? 1
On the other hand, it appears that the 'alternative' between control and trust is one of the main
tradeoffs in several domains of information technology and computer science, from Human
Computer Interaction to Multi-Agent Systems, Electronic Commerce, Virtual Organisations,
and so on, precisely as in human social interaction.
Consider, for example, the problem of mediating between two such diverging concepts
as control and autonomy (and the trust on which the autonomy is based) in the design of
human-computer interfaces (Hendler, 1999):
'One of the more contentious issues in the design of human-computer interfaces arises from
the contrast between direct manipulation interfaces and autonomous agent-based systems .The
proponents of direct manipulation argue that a human should always be in control - steering an
agent should be like steering a car - you're there and you're active the whole time. However,
if the software simply provides the interface to, for example, an airlines booking facility, the
user must keep all needs, constraints and preferences in his or her own head. (

)Atruly
effective internet agent needs to be able to work for the user when the user isn't directly in
control.'
Consider also the naive approach to security and reliability in computer mediated interaction,
just based on strict rules, authorization, cryptography, inspection, control, etc. (Castelfranchi,
2000) which can be in fact self-defeating for improving Electonic Commerce, Virtual Organ-
isation, Cyber-Communities (Nissenbaum, 1999).
The problem is that the trust-control relationship is both conceptually and practically quite
complex and dialectic. We will try to explain it both at the conceptual and modelling level,
and in terms of their reciprocal dynamics.

...

7.1.2 What Control Is
'Control' is a (meta) action 2 :

1 'Do you trust this system/company/aircraft/drug

... !?' 'Yes I do! There are so many controls and safety

measures . . !'
2 We will call control activity the combination of two more specific activities: monitoring and intervention.