Should we gamify citizenship?

We live in a world filled with status symbols. Every well-written resume is

chocked full of symbols of distinction ranging from academic accomplishments,
job titles, published works, personal endorsements, memberships, patents,
awards, and more. However, most of these achievements go unnoticed.

For example, the financial world will pay attention to a persons FICO score, but
little else. The employment world is focused on specific accomplishments that
relate to a persons ability to perform a particular job. Customer loyalty programs
help incentivize the renewed buying patterns of great customers. And police
departments zero in on a person’s criminal history to determine the likelihood
they’ll become a repeat offender.

We currently have no overarching system for rating a person’s value to society

as a whole.

As a country we’ve focused on penalizing people for bad behavior, but we

haven’t done a good job of incentivizing people for good behavior.

We are moving quickly towards a data-driven society, which naturally begs the
question, should we develop some sort of “citizenship” scoring system? And
more importantly, should there be incentives that help push people in the right
direction.

Admittedly, any system that gamifies citizenship can go woefully wrong, but a
well-executed process can also have many positive benefits.
What exactly is citizenship?

The first forms of citizenships started in ancient Greece, but most of what we
think of today as citizenship was developed much later, as a Western
phenomenon.

As a citizen, you’re a member of a specific nation. It comes with a number of

rights and privileges, but also with a number of obligations.

Privileges include the right to become involved in the political process, the right to
vote, and the right to safety and protection.

Being a citizen in most countries starts with a constitution that defines, in high-
level terms, the various rights, duties, and obligations each person has.

Changing citizenship, however, is a slow and burdensome process that usually

takes several years to accomplish. Citizenship is based on the idea that people
are born into it, and very few official are in favor of seeing the process
streamlined.

In the future, as travel becomes easier, and we find ourselves living in far more
fluid lifestyles, countries will find themselves competing for citizens.
Redefining Citizenship

Is there a difference between a good citizen and a great one?

Is it ok to only do the bare minimum of what it takes to be a citizen? Would we be

a better country if we all tried a bit harder?

Citizenship means different things to different people. We typically have a back-

of-the-mind rating system in place that tallies things like standing and singing
during the pledge of allegiance, installing a flag on the front porch during
holidays, and openly thanking our veterans into an overall citizenship quotient.
But should there be a more formal ranking system, and more importantly, how
would it be used?

As a status symbol, the reinvention of citizenship is long overdue, and the

possibilities are endless.

We are moving quickly into a data-drive world where informational symbols will
be assigned to virtually everything we do. Here are a few quick examples:

 File our taxes on time we receive an additional 3,000 points, but for every
day we’re late, we lose 200 points.
 Go in for regular health checkups we receive 1,000 points, but if we shrug
off an appointment, we lose 2,000 points.
 Receive a parking ticket we lose 1,500 points. Once we pay the fine, we
get our 1,500 points back.
 When an election is held, you receive 500 points for casting your vote.

So does this mean that if you were taken hostage in a foreign country and your
citizenship score is a scant 327, maybe you’d get a phone call from a low level
diplomat attempting to secure your release? But being a platinum gold citizen
with a lofty score of over 87,000, a Navy Seal Team shows up within 12 hours,
shoots all of the hostage-takers and fly you back home first class?

As a status symbol, the reinvention of citizenship is long overdue.

The Chinese Experiment – Sesame Credits

The Chinese government is developing a citizen score called Sesame Credits to

rate the trustworthiness of their 1.3 billion citizens.

In the U.S. our FICO credit score rates our trustworthiness, but China’s lack of a
national credit system is why the government believes a citizen score is needed
to resolve its current “trust deficit.”

Since many people in China don’t own houses, cars, or credit cards, they lack
most of the criteria for measuring credit risk. The central bank of China has the
financial data from 800 million people, but only 320 million have a traditional
credit history.

In China the sale of counterfeit and substandard products is a huge problem.

These inferior and often shoddy products affect their own people even more than
the rest of the world. When it comes to services, only about half of the signed
contracts are fulfilled.

The Sesame Credits program began on a voluntary basis but participation will
become mandatory as of 2020. The behavior of every single citizen and legal
person (which includes every company and corporate entity) will be rated and
ranked.
A score ranging from 350 to 950 points measures individuals within the Sesame
Credit system. As the overall architect of the system, Alibaba will not disclose the
algorithms it’s using to calculate the number but they do reveal the five factors
taken into account.

1. Credit history – Traditional rating of loan repayments

2. Contractual reliability & performance - A user’s ability to fulfill his/her
contractual obligations
3. Personal identity - Verified personal information such as their mobile
phone number and address
4. Consumer behavior and preference - Shopping habits as a measure of
character. People are what they buy. The system not only investigates
behavior, it shapes it. Nudging citizens away from purchases and
behaviors the government does not like.
5. Interpersonal relationships – The people you associate with say a lot
about who you are. Their score will affect your score. People who share
what Sesame Credit refers to as “positive energy” online, nice messages
about the government or how well the country’s economy is doing, will
make their score go up.

Every new system will go through countless tweaks over time, but these are
some of the examples they have disclosed so far:

 China has never liked those who post dissenting political opinions, but
now it will lower a citizen’s rating. A person’s score will also be affected by
what their online friends say and do

 Score of 600: People can take out a ‘Just Spend’ loan of up to 5,000 Yuan
to use to shop online as long as it’s on an Alibaba site

 Score of 650: They can rent a car without leaving a deposit

 Score of 650: Travelers are entitled to a faster check-in at hotels and use
of the VIP check-in at Beijing Capital International Airport

 Score of 666: People can get a cash loan of up to 50,000 Yuan from Ant
Financial Services

 Score of 700: Citizens can apply for travel to Singapore without supporting
documents (i.e. employee letter)

 Score of 750: Travelers will have their application fast-tracked for the
coveted pan-European Schengen visa
Creating a System for Gamified Citizenship

As I think about how the world is changing, some form of gamified citizenship
seems inevitable. However, there are literally thousands of nuanced versions of
how this could be implemented.

I’ll start with a list of assumptions but would love to hear your thoughts on these
and other possible approaches.

Assumption #1: Penalties and incentives need to be in harmony. The same

amount of money derived from penalties to deter bad behavior should equal the
amount of money spent on incentives to encourage good behavior. No individual,
organization, or agency should ever directly benefit from fines or penalties.

Assumption #2: Having fixed parameters for scoring, such as the 350-950
range used for Sesame Credits in China (similar to FICO scores), may prevent
people from obsessing over their scores, but will also promote “good enoughism”
limiting people from taking initiative to try harder.

Assumption #3: Having known parameters for scoring provides direct

correlation between actions and rewards. Using somewhat vague and mysterious
parameters, as in Sesame Credits and FICO scores, will limit its role as an
incentive. A system with unlimited scoring potential, as in frequent flier miles
where people can literally accrue millions of miles, will remove those barriers, but
could also encourage fraudulent activities and hacking.
I would argue that a direct cause-and-effect correlation between actions and
rewards is far more useful. It’s similar to starting a new job. The number of hours
a person works can be used to precisely calculate their paycheck.

Assumption #4: Any system for gamifying citizenship will need to be continually
tweaked and revised over time. This is no different than implementing a new tax
code, healthcare plan, or education system. All notions of creating the perfect
“forever” system should be immediately dismissed.

Assumption #5: “Guaranteed minimum income” advocates will find their ideas
far better received under a gamified citizenship umbrella.

What constitutes a positive act?

If we were to brainstorm which acts or actions constitute a positive influence on

society, which items would you rank at the top of the list?

This will undoubtedly become the most controversial part of creating a working
system. Any activity that seems beneficial to one person may seem trivial or
expected to others.

From my vantage point, describing positive acts becomes a global litmus test of
ethics and morality. As a society, how will we adjust to being constantly judged
by others, even if it’s an automated AI system without human observers?

We’re all fallible humans and poor judgment will always show up sooner or later.
Even so, doesn’t it feel good when someone takes notice of the positive things
we do?

Here are a few examples of positive acts:

 Helping an injured person

 Volunteering for a good cause
 Helping a struggling child
 Obeying the laws
 Sharing a compliment
 Running in a marathon to raise money for charity
 Being a whistleblower to draw attention to a bad situation
 Creating a smile (In many settings, the simple act of creating a smile can
be a life changing experience)

Should people be penalized for bad behavior – doing drugs, smoking cigarettes,
drinking too much, participating in orgies, lying, stealing, or getting into fights?
Even though some of these are legal, they do constitute poor judgment.
Virtually every law in the U.S. comes with a penalty section – “failure to comply is
a class 2 misdemeanor punishable with fines up to $1,000 and/or incarceration
not to exceed 9 months.”

The problem is that there are far too many laws to enforce, and every act of
enforcement requires personal time and attention.

As a result, the vast majority of infractions tend to fade into obscurity, and in
these situations, having no penalty serves as its own reward. At the same time,
those who are meticulous about conforming to every detail of the law also feel
slighted.

What constitutes an incentive?

In general, each of us is motivated by different kinds of dangling carrots. For this

reason, I’ve broken the incentives into three separate categories – purchasable
incentives, status incentives, and privilege incentives.

1.) Purchasable incentives

Airline miles have morphed into an alternative currency that can be used to
purchase any number of items. This means everything we can buy with a gift
card for today becomes a potential incentive in a world of gamified citizenship.

 Dinner for two

 Weekend golf getaway
 Airline ticket
 Lift tickets at a ski resort
 Family pass to Disneyland
 New television
 New telephone
 New car

2.) Status incentives

Status ends up being a compelling motivator. Our seemingly unquenchable need

for attention and respect permeates nearly every person in our community.

 Membership into exclusive organizations

 Membership into country clubs
 Eligible for TSA Pre-Check
 Eligible for fast-track patent applications
 Higher status on college scholarship applications
 Pre-qualified for micro loans
 Eligible for VIP section at sports stadium
  Automatic upgrade on your next driverless car

3.) Privilege incentives

In this context, privilege should never be something you’re born into or can buy
your way into. As something you earn, privilege can be a powerful carrot,
especially if you can design your own form of privilege.

 Eligible for insider auctions

 Eligible for commemorative coin sale at U.S. Mint
 Eligible for special volunteer activities (i.e. running the Olympic Torch)
 Free annual dental exam
 Free annual healthcare exam
 One free night in the “Lincoln Bedroom” at the White House
 Access to a special “call in the case of emergency” phone number
 One get-out-of-jail-free card

Final Thoughts

What constitutes the difference between good and bad, and who gets to decide?

A recent episode of “Black Mirror” titled Nosedive showed how the life of a young
woman turned score junkie had her life destroyed by a similar life rating system.
Many who read this will cringe at the prospects of creating a super surveillance
society. In fact it gives me shivers to think that big brother may be watching my
every move.

At the same time, many of these elements already exist, and heightened levels of
surveillance are going to happen simply as the result of our increased levels of
automation.

Is it better to create a formal system like this up front or simply let our current
haphazard forms of tech evolve on their own?

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Please take a few moments to jot
down your ideas and let me know your thinking.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Author of “Epiphany Z – 8 Radical Visions for Transforming Your Future”