Kate O'Neill Follow

Strategic consultant, author/writer, keynote speaker dealing with data and humanity. @kateo. Mor
Jul 28 7 min read

The Tech Humanist Manifesto

We need to encode technology with the best of our
humanity.

After twenty-plus years of working in web technology, digital strategy,

marketing, and operations, with job titles like intranet developer,
content manager, head of customer experience, and even search
monkey, and after writing a book on the integration of physical and
digital experiences and now working on a book on automation and arti-
ficial intelligence, I have a dicult time describing to people what I do.
So Ive decided to declare myself a tech humanist.

I have decided to declare myself a tech humanist.

Because what Ive realized is that data and technology in all their forms
are becoming integrated ever more tightly into our lives and ever more
powerful, to the point where the work of making technology successful
for human use is inseparable from the work of making the world better
for humans. I would even argue that the work of making better technol-
ogy needs to be in lockstep with the work of being a better human.

And no, I didnt grow up wanting to be a tech humanist. I mean, its not
like I read science fiction as a kid and thought someday I would think,
write, and speak about the emerging impact of data and technology on
human experience.

I was a German major.

I still dont read science fiction now as an adult, by the way, although I
do see the connection between the work that I do and that genres ex-
ploration of technology and culture.
 Is this what science fiction looks like? image via https://pixabay.com/p-1677542/

Its just that Ive always preferred stories that explicitly examine human
relationships. Because what interests me most is always people: were
such complicated systems of nerves and emotions and thoughts and im-
pulses.
Were self-aware animals, pondering our own existence, conscious of
our place in the universe. (Not always conscious enough, but still.)

Cosmic primates.

I do think technology is endlessly fascinating. But Im even more fasci-

nated by humans and our endless complexity and capacity for nuance.

Which means when it comes to any aspect of technology, what I care

most about are
the people who make the technology,
the people who use the technology,
the people who benefit from the technology and the people who suer
for the technology,
the people whose lives may somehow be changed by the technology.

What I care most about are the people whose lives

may be somehow changed by technology.

And its not because we use technology. In other words, it isnt just the
tools.
Ravens use tools. So why am I not, say, a tech ravenist?
Unless we find out about other intelligent species with technology in
the universe, humans are the best identifiable link between the domi-
nant technology and the rest of organic life on this planet and beyond.

So our best hope for aligning the needs of all living things and all tech-
nological progress is in our own human enlightenment.

Our best hope for integrating the needs of all living

things and all technological progress is in our own
enlightenment.

We need technological progress. It will surely bring us cures for disease,

interplanetary and someday even intergalactic travel, safe and ecient
energy, new forms and modes of communication, as well as so much
else.

But for our own sake, and for the sake of humans who come after us,
we need to wrap that progress around human advancement.

And to do that, we need to foster our own enlightenment. We need a

more sophisticated relationship with meaning and with what is truly
meaningful, at every level:
in communication,
in pattern recognition,
in our relationships,
in our existence.

To develop technology in harmony with human advancement, we need

to challenge our basest instincts and channel our best intentions. We
need to genuinely want and be committed to creating the best futures
for the most people.

We need to want the best futures for the most people.

Because the fact is we encode our biases into data, into algorithms, into
technology as a whole. So as we develop an increasingly machine-dri-
ven future, we need to encode machines with the best of who we are.
And in that way, infuse the future with our brightest hope, our most
egalitarian views, our most evolved understandings.
We need to recognize the humanity in the data we mine for profit, to
see that much of the time, analytics are people. That everything we do
in the digitally and physically connected worlds creates a data trail.
That who we project ourselves to be onlinethat self, that digital self
is our aspirational self, liking things and connecting with other peo-
ple and wandering through the digital world in awe, and our aspira-
tional self, our digital self deserves due privacy and protection in every
way.

We need to recognize the humanity in the data we

mine for profit.

We talk about digital transformation in business. But lets be honest:

most corporate environments are anything but transformative. So we
need to begin to re-imagine and yes, transform business operations and
culture around new models of infrastructure, new understandings of
the social contract between employer and employee, and fundamentally
new ideas of value.

Tin wind-up robots,via Wikimedia

Because our world is increasingly integrated: online and oine, at

work and at play, and we have to be wholly integrated selves, too.
And so we have to ask what the exchange of value means when its
about an integrated you in an integrated world.

We need to decide, for example, when we talk about autonomous cars:

whose autonomy are we talking about? What are the broader implica-
tions of gaining freedom while losing control? Evolving from a society
of private automobile ownership to privatized fleets of self-driving cars
will give us back time, wont it? Or will it? And yes, it will mean life-
changing possibilities for disabled and elderly people. If they can aord
it. All in all, as anyone dependent on the New York City subway knows,
if our mobility depends on machines we dont own and dont directly
control, we are making a tradeo. It may be a worthwhile tradeo, it
may even be an exciting tradeo, but it is a tradeo and we should ask
meaningful questions about it.

We need to know that living in a culture with an ever-accelerating

sense of time might mean having to resist an ever-narrowing horizon.
That we have to try not to lose our sense of greater perspective in the
FOMO frenzy. That our sense that experiences arent real unless we
share them and receive a few likes (or preferably a lot of likes) could
cost us some peace of mind.

We need to begin to re-imagine our lives around new dimensions of

meaningful experience.

And ask ourselves:

What dierent dynamics come into play when relationships are con-
ducted across physical distances but connected by intimate virtual
space, and what can make those relationships more meaningful.
What fosters communities when theyre multi-faceted network nodes,
and not found mostly in houses of worship and town squares, and what
will make those communities more meaningful.
What what we do for a living will mean as jobs shift, as our under-
standing of contribution changes, and what will make that contribution
more meaningful.

Because so much of the way weve derived our identity, our sense of ac-
complishment, achievement, contribution, value, self-worth, is subject
to radical overhaul in the next decade and the one following that and
beyond. More jobs will be automated, augmented, enhanced, and yes,
eliminated. And certainly new jobs will be created, but we cant wait
for them to make sense of this. We have to begin re-imagining now
what meaningful contribution looks like in that context.

So we need to ask what it means to be human when the characteristics

we think of as uniquely ours can be done by machines. What is the
value of humanity?

We need to ask what it means to be human when the

characteristics we think of as uniquely ours can be
done by machines.

And see, its not that Im a human exceptionalist, exactly. Ive been ve-
gan for 20 years, after all, which I point out to illustrate that I dont
think rights are something only humans deserve. And eventually if Im
around when machines become sentient, Ill probably care about AI
rights and ethics, too. I cant help it: Im a sucker for equality.

So its not that I think humans are so special that we deserve protecting
and coddling, except that just maybe we are, and just maybe we do.

I just think that whatever it ishumanityits worth advocating for.

Whatever combination of fascination and flaws it was that produced
Shakespeare, Gloria Steinem, Paris, pizza, the Brooklyn Bridge, beer,
Nelson Mandela, denim, Mary Tyler Moore, coee, chocolate chip ice
cream

I could go on and on, but I dont even know if any of that is really the
best of humanity, or even the best of what humanity has achieved. And
what lies ahead of us are even greater challenges. So I dont know what
the best of humanity has been and at some level I dont really care.

I just think we have to be at our best now. And somehow striving for
our best, somehow making something lasting, and most of all working
to make the best future for the most peopleI think that is the best of
what humanity can be and has to be.

And we need to start making it our mission to give it, to be it, to encode
it, to build it in our culture, in our data models, our work environ-
ments, our relationships, and all throughout the technology that is in-
terwoven in our lives. Its not science fiction; the future really does
depend on it.
___

Thank you for reading. Please hit the green heart / Recommend button if
you found this piece interesting or meaningful. And please feel free to share
widely.

Kate ONeill, founder of KO Insights, is an author, speaker, and consultant

focused on the impact of data and technology on meaningful human expe-
riences across all areas of our lives. Her latest book is Pixels and Place:
Connecting Human Experience Across Digital and Physical Spaces.