The Digicratic Oath: Reduce Harm in Technology

Why designers, developers, and programmers should pledge an oath to do no harm in technology.

NOTE: Originally published in 2018 on Medium and UX Collective.

In the Hippocratic oath, doctors pledge “first do no harm.” While the phrase doesn’t show up in the original oath written by Hippocrates, the sentiment behind “do no harm” is a guiding force among medical practitioners.

The medical community drafted the promise to provide a comprehensive overview of the obligations and professional behavior of a doctor to their patients and to society. Doctors who violate these codes are subjected to disciplinary proceedings, and sometimes, lose their license to practice medicine.

Designers, developers, and technologists are in a unique position to affect people’s lives, just like doctors. With recent revelations that certain technologies have triggered our worst behaviors, like Facebook, perhaps now is the time to implement an oath for the digital practitioners.

The Digital Illiterate

Let’s start with the idea of digital literacy. Today’s modern phone created a sense of global digital literacy — the idea that we all know how to interact with a digital interface. This is demonstrable by watching toddlers navigate the iPhone.

In developing countries, where most people don’t have access to the latest and greatest technologies, the proliferation of mobile phones provides for raised digital literacy rates.

Interaction in both the physical and digital worlds is the new normal. However, underneath this “digital enlightenment” is a dirty and dark pattern growing — digital illiteracy. The digitally illiterate are those who don’t know that the algorithm is chewing away their attention span.

A variety of notifications from our devices continuously bombarded our attention. According to the Center for Humane Technology, it is an invisible?problem?that’s affecting all of society.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google are caught in a zero-sum race for our finite attention, from which they need to make money. Constantly forced to outperform their competitors, they must use increasingly persuasive techniques to keep us glued.

They point AI-driven news feeds, content, and notifications at our minds, continually learning how to hook us more deeply — from our own behavior. Unfortunately, what’s best for capturing our attention isn’t best for our well-being.

Snapchat turns conversations into streaks, redefining how our children measure friendship.

Instagram glorifies the picture-perfect life, eroding our self-worth.

Facebook segregates us into echo chambers, fragmenting our communities.

YouTube auto-plays the next video within seconds, even if it eats into our sleep. These are not neutral products. They are part of a system designed to addict us.

What can the Digicratic Oath do to solve this problem?

Digicratic is a?portmanteau?describing the philosophical and pragmatic oath one must take when working in the digital application and product design space. Digicratic is not medical technology per se, however, from a neurological and psychiatric dimension, there appears to be an equivalence.

To construct this new oath, let’s use the most recent?Hippocratic Oath?as a starting point. Words like physicians, surgeons, et al. will be replaced with the “designer”, “developer”, and “programmer”. Also, the use of medicine and drug changed to design, development, or programming.

NOTE: the oath has not been adopted by any official design or programming consortium or oversight committee.

Digicratic Oath 2018

• I will respect the hard-won data and analytical gains of those designers in whose steps I walk and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
• I will apply for the benefit of the end-user; all measures [that] are required, avoiding those twin traps of manipulation and anxiety.
• I will remember that there is an art and science to designing and that warmth, empathy, and understanding may outweigh the developer’s and programmer’s code.
• I will not be ashamed to say, “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of others are needed for a user’s needs.
• I will respect the privacy of my users, for their data are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially, must I tread with care in matters of design and publishing applications. If it is given to me to enrich a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take away an application; We must face this awesome responsibility with great humbleness and awareness of my frailty.?Above all, I must not play at God.
• I will remember that I do not build or design for a demographic or market share, but a human being. A being whose attention and use of my product may affect the person’s family and economic stability.
• I will prevent wanton design whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
• I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body, as well as the infirm.
• If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live, and remembered with affection after that. May I always act to preserve the finest traditions of my calling, and may I long experience the joy of designing for those who seek my help.

Today I call upon the designer, the programmer, the coder, the developer, whichever title you hold, to take the digicratic oath that upholds the notion of first, do no harm.