IB Digital Society 4.7 Social Key Definitions

A chatbot, built on AI, designed to act as a friend, confidant, or romantic partner that remembers a user and is always available. It can offer comfort and reduce loneliness, but only simulates care and can foster dependence or expose vulnerable users to harm.

Systematic, unfair outcomes produced by a computer system, often because the data it learned from under-represents some groups or encodes past inequality. In healthcare it can mean a tool works well for some patients and poorly for others.

Building a picture of a person from their online behaviour, then sorting them into groups to target content and ads. It can infer sensitive traits such as age, ethnicity, or sexuality that were never disclosed, raising concerns about consent, privacy, and discrimination.

The use of software, often AI, to make or heavily shape decisions about people, such as allocating benefits or flagging fraud, with little or no human involvement. It is fast and consistent but can encode bias and remove the chance to explain or appeal a decision.

The use of technology to perform tasks without human intervention.

When the separate audiences a person keeps apart offline, such as family, friends, and colleagues, merge into a single online audience, so one post is seen by all of them at once. It makes presenting a consistent self harder and can expose people to unintended readers.

A systematic skew in a dataset, from how it was collected or what it left out, that makes any system built on it treat some groups unfairly.

The gap between people who have reliable access to digital systems and the skills to use them and those who do not, a gap that tends to follow existing lines of income, age, geography, and ability.

An online space where a group mostly encounters views that match its own, so shared beliefs are repeated and reinforced while opposing or outside perspectives rarely get in.

The act, process, or instance of representing ideas, emotions, and/or experiences using different modes and media.

Giving people access to useful, affordable financial services such as saving, sending money, and borrowing. Digital tools like mobile money can extend it to those without a bank account, though access still depends on a device and network and is set by private providers.

An economy in which people offer short-term services and commissions via digital technologies.

The qualities, beliefs, and characteristics that define a person, group, or community. Identity is shaped by others and by context, so it is not fixed.

A mindset that recognizes the interconnectedness of the global community and embraces diversity.

A group of people who interact and build shared identity, norms, and belonging through a digital platform, connected by common interests rather than by physical location.

Using apps and websites to meet potential partners, with algorithms suggesting and ranking matches from a large pool. It widens who a person can meet beyond their own circle, but can gamify attention, encourage superficial judgement, and raise safety concerns.

The individuals and groups affected by digital systems, including users, developers, regulators, and those excluded from access. Different people and communities often make competing claims.

Parents or carers sharing photos and information about their children online. It connects family and friends, but builds a child's digital footprint before they can consent, and the content can be copied, misused, or follow the child for life.

A hierarchical division of society based on economic status, occupation, and education.

The systematic monitoring of people's behaviour, often through digital data, by a state or company, whether or not those being watched are aware of it.

Values are the things a person or group holds to be important, and ethics are the systems of reasoning used to decide what is right, fair, or just. Together they guide how people judge and act.