TRUST

Trust is the belief in the good character of one party, presumed to seek to fulfill policies, ethical codes, law and their previous promises.

In the social sciences, the subtleties of trust are a subject of passionate debate. In sociology (and psychology) the degree to which one party trusts another is a measure of belief in the benevolence and competence of the other party. A failure in trust will be forgiven more easily if it is interpreted as a failure of competence rather than a lack of benevolence.

From this perspective, trust is an internal state, and cannot be measured. Only confidence, which is expressed as behavior, can be measured. Trust may be considered a moral choice. In this case, machine-human trust is meaningless, because computers have no moral sense. Any trust in a device under this characterization is computer-mediated trust of the user of the machine in the designer and creator of the device. Francis Fukuyama and Tyler are academics who advocate this conception of trust – as moral and not directly observable.