[pradn]

The potential for abuse of a "social score" system seems even higher in countries without strong liberal-democratic traditions or an educated voting population. Politicians in India already abuse their oversight of the police to sidestep the legal system. (The classic case of the "son of the MLA" who commits a crime and gets acquitted because of his father's political power.) It would be easy enough to reduce the social scores for opponents or critics of the politicians in power. Hell, there have been arrests in India based on Facebook posts. Not to mention virtual mobs threatening vocal citizens on Twitter. At least these instances are visible. Someone could silently add some bogus stuff to your "social score" file, just like credit reports can contain false information. A "social score" system would just replicate corruption and illiberality on a large scale. From the perspective of those in power, it would be a good way to control people.

[manishsharan]

You do make a very good point about the potential for abuse. My vision for this would be be a dispassionate system -- driven by AI and untouched by politics-- that could create/assign the social score. A model could be created by the science community with inputs from the legal system.

[pradn]

Technology just encodes the ethics of the creator, so we can't hope for apolitical technology.