Research Agenda

First research milestone: Parts I and II

The first corpus should establish definitions, harm, economics, acceptable automation, authority, and error cost before detection mechanisms receive deep treatment.

Workstream A — Definitions and policy comparison

• Collect versioned automation/bot policies from contrasting platform categories.
• Identify which rules govern mechanism, behavior, outcome, scale, identity, or authorization.
• Record accessibility, testing, research, API, and commercial exceptions.

Workstream B — Harm evidence

• Find primary measurements connecting automation or coordinated abuse to user, market, infrastructure, and trust outcomes.
• Distinguish platform assertions from causal or longitudinal evidence.
• Collect examples where automated participation produces value.

Workstream C — Economics

• Research attacker unit economics, account and infrastructure markets, defender cost, displacement, and replacement time.
• Prefer ranges and sensitivity analysis to unsupported point estimates.

Workstream D — Authority and rights

• Choose initial jurisdictions explicitly.
• Map data collection, profiling, automated decision, explanation, contractual remedy, purchased goods, and appeal constraints.
• Require specialist review before the manuscript presents legal conclusions.

Workstream E — Decision cost

• Gather calibrated examples showing base-rate effects and action-dependent thresholds.
• Research appeal selection bias, concentrated error burdens, and reversible interventions.

Exit criteria

Parts I and II can enter prose drafting when each chapter has:

• at least five checked primary sources spanning technical and nontechnical evidence;
• at least one meaningful counterexample or disagreement;
• a completed canvas slice;
• a decision procedure with known residual uncertainty;
• a reviewed publication-safety note.