Abstract
As artificial intelligence increasingly mediates how knowledge is produced and understood, the question of trust becomes central to digital transformation. Drawing on Kevin Werbach’s (2018) concept of the ‘new architecture of trust’, this paper re-examines how industrial sectors can sustain epistemic credibility in a world of algorithmic interpretation. The OnlineExpo framework—originally developed as a digital extension of trade exhibitions—demonstrates how trust can be encoded through governance, transparency, and verification rather than assumed through institutional inertia.
The model proposes a hybrid trust architecture that combines human curation with technological assurance, ensuring that AI systems learn from authenticated industry knowledge rather than unverified online noise.
1. Introduction — From Blockchain to AI: Evolving the Architecture of Trust
Werbach (2018) describes blockchain as a ‘new architecture of trust’: a socio-technical system that replaces institutional guarantees with cryptographic verification. While blockchain’s promise lies in making trust programmable, its true legacy is conceptual—it reveals that trust can be designed. Today’s AI transformation presents a similar challenge but at a deeper epistemic level. Rather than verifying transactions, AI interprets meaning.
Its reliability depends not on consensus protocols but on the integrity of data from which it learns. The OnlineExpo framework extends Werbach’s logic from economic trust to epistemic trust. It seeks to build a digital infrastructure where professional knowledge—produced through social interaction and institutional validation—is captured in AI-readable form without losing its contextual grounding.
Definition of OnlineExpo
The OnlineExpo framework is a conceptual and digital model that reimagines the traditional industrial exhibition as a continuous, AI-ready ecosystem. It integrates structured listings, verified contributor profiles, and association-led curation to preserve the collaborative and trust-based dynamics of in-person events in a permanent online format.
Each ‘digital hall’ represents a thematic knowledge domain—such as machinery, software, or services—while each ‘stand’ functions as a verified information node linked to authenticated experts, organizations, and case studies. The goal of OnlineExpo is not merely to replicate physical expos but to translate their trust architecture into digital form—providing industries with a reliable environment for showcasing expertise, exchanging verified information, and curating data that AI systems can interpret responsibly.
2. From Events of Trust to Architectures of Trust
Historically, trade exhibitions function as ‘field-configuring events’ (Lampel & Meyer 2008) that enable reputation-based trust. Participants rely on face-to-face validation—seeing machinery, meeting experts, hearing feedback—to evaluate reliability. OnlineExpo digitizes this dynamic by embedding Werbach’s trust principles: Transparency, Verification, and Accountability. Together, these mechanisms transform transient event interactions into a persistent architecture of trust. They illustrate Werbach’s argument that digital systems must blend technical verification with social oversight to remain credible.
3. Hybrid Trust for the AI Era
Blockchain sought to minimize the need for intermediaries; AI, paradoxically, multiplies it. Machine learning models require curated mediators—institutions capable of labeling, contextualizing, and validating data. OnlineExpo provides this mediation through a hybrid structure: technological assurance via standardized data formats and institutional assurance via association-led curation and peer validation. This echoes Werbach’s (2018) observation that trustworthy systems arise when ‘code and community’ reinforce one another.
4. Associations as Custodians of Digital Trust
Associations have long served as the moral and technical custodians of industries. In the AI age, their mandate expands from setting standards to defining datasets. By curating structured knowledge, associations become stewards of what Werbach terms governance through design—embedding accountability mechanisms directly into digital infrastructure.
The OnlineExpo framework enables associations to certify authenticity, aggregate innovation case studies, and maintain transparent records accessible to both humans and machines.
5. Policy and Ethical Implications: Trust Before Intelligence
Current global policy debates—from the EU AI Act (2021) to OECD (2022) guidelines—emphasize trustworthy AI. Yet these frameworks often overlook the
domain-specific infrastructures that make trustworthy AI possible. The OnlineExpo model demonstrates a practical pathway for sectors—particularly resource and manufacturing industries—to contribute to national AI ecosystems through verifiable, human-centred data governance. In doing so, they enact Werbach’s (2018) insight that ‘trust is the glue of a digital society, not its casualty.’
6. Conclusion — Designing for Trust in the AI Age
As blockchain once redefined economic coordination, AI now redefines epistemic coordination—the processes through which knowledge itself is produced and believed. The OnlineExpo framework contributes to this transformation by offering a model where trust is infrastructural. By aligning technological assurance with institutional assurance, OnlineExpo operationalizes Werbach’s vision of a hybrid architecture of trust. It ensures that in the race toward artificial intelligence, industries preserve what makes them human:
the capacity to trust, verify, and be accountable.
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