Humane – A New Agenda for Tech

While most of the talk in the media is about technologies surpassing human abilities someday, the reality is that we have already succeeded in creating technologies that overwhelm human weaknesses.

This talk (included below) gives a succinct definition of the problem, with a promising set of solutions.

Problem definition: The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology.

Proposed solution: Humane social systems, Humane AI, Regenerative incentives.

You’ll need to listen to the talk to understand this better. And, as he points out, a great thing about today’s technologies is that only a few thousand people need to change their thinking for massive worldwide change to occur.

Also, using the correct language is very important to change how we think. Some phrases that I really liked:

• It’s time to start thinking of the term “our digital self” as “our digital voodoo doll” to reflect what is really happening: a voodoo doll manipulated to make us do things that we don’t rally want to do.
• “Race to the bottom of our brainstem”.
• Time for the industry to start thinking of “time well spent” rather than “attention mining”.
• “Full stack humane design”
• Time to move from “Human downgrading technologies” to “Humane technologies”: Technology that is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties.

Humane: A New Agenda for Tech from Center for Humane Technology on Vimeo.