Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1034189
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 30 SEPTEMBER 2018 G9 GAMING BLOCKCHAIN YOUR reputation defines how people see you and what they will do for you. It determines whether your bank will lend you money to buy a house or car; whether your landlord will accept you as a tenant; which employers will hire you, and how much they will pay you. It can even affect your marriage prospects. And in the present Repu- tation Economy, it's getting more powerful than ever. Be- cause today, thanks to rapid advances in digital technol- ogy, anyone can access huge troves of information about you, your buying habits, your finances, your professional and personal networks, and even your physical wherea- bouts at any time. In a world where technology allows companies and individ- uals alike to not only gather all this data but also aggregate it and analyse it with frightening speed, accuracy, and sophisti- cation, our digital reputations are fast becoming our most valuable currency. Today everything depends on the social score, and everyone is desperate to move up in the rankings. But the omnipresent rating game has one big catch: rank- ing up is incredibly hard, while ranking down is rapid and easy, like a free-fall. Welcome to the reputation economy, where the individual social graph, the social data set about each person, determines one's value in society, access to services, and employability. In this economy, reputation becomes currency. On the web or via mobile, we can now share almost anything. The reputation economy is based on the simplistic, but ef- fective star ratings system. Anyone who's ever rated their Uber driver or AirBnB host has actively participated. But what happens when algorithms, rather than humans, determine an individual's reputation score based on multiple data sources and mathematical formulas, promising more accuracy and more flexibility via machine learning to effective star ratings system. Over 60% of companies in Malta currently use social me- dia to screen employees. And many AI-enabled startups are competing in the HR assess- ment market, using AI to crawl potential candidates' social me- dia accounts to filter out bad fits. What unifies all current plat- forms is a reliance on our abil- ity to get enough information about the person we are ex- changing with to feel comfort- able setting the terms on an in- dividual basis. In other words, they are econ- omies of reputation. Much of the growing interest in these platforms springs from the conflicts we're seeing in traditional markets. Lack of access to capital, slow market growth, poor employ- ment rates all of these are driv- ing people to find ways to lev- erage value from other areas of their lives. Back In 2012, Facebook ap- plied for a patent that would use an algorithm to assess the credit ratings of friends, as a factor in one's eligibility to get a mortgage. And China is aiming to im- plement a national social score for every citizen by 2020, based on crime records, their social media, what they buy, and even the scores of their friends. Being able to accurately or even reasonably accurately measure reputation has im- mense value. It makes it far easier to find suppliers or busi- ness partners and this lowering of transaction cost can create a far more fluid and efficient economy. If you are investing in or sup- porting small businesses espe- cially in developing countries. It means your resources can go far further. We will increas- ingly have reputation scores at- tached to content, to publish- ers and to journalists, making it easier to find trustworthy information and it might even make dating a little easier. The reputation economy will increasingly drive business and society. Your reputation will precede you wherever you go There are only a few win- dows in history where the op- portunity exists to reinvent part of how our socioeconom- ic system works. We're living through one of those moments. I believe that we are at the start of a collabo- rative revolution that will be as significant as the Industrial Revolution. `In the 20th century, the in- vention of traditional credit transformed our consumer system, and in many ways con- trolled who had access to what. In the 21st century, new trust networks, and the reputation capital they generate, will re- invent the way we think about wealth, markets, power, and personal identity, in ways we can't yet even imagine. Reputation economy... where we are all silently judged So, if someone asked you for the three words that would sum up your reputation, what would you say? How would people describe your judgment, your knowledge, your behaviours, in different situations? Journalist Patrick J O Brien explores why the answer to this question has become profoundly important in an age where reputation will be your most valuable asset Patrick J O Brien Welcome to the reputation economy, where the individual social graph, the social data set about each person, determines one's value in society, access to services, and employability