A humane vision for technology

The real problem of humanity is the following: We have paleolithic emotions; medieval institutions; and god-like technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall. ~E.O.Wilson

While the world is still buzzing about Meta/Metaverse, I couldn't find a better summary that reflects our reality today.?

Over the last few weeks, I have been contemplating the future of technology and how this might impact us if we are not aware of the broader implications it might have in our lives. So, my intention with this article is to share my cautiously optimistic point of view.

This is also an invitation for us to be more self-aware at the individual level first, then hopefully create ethical technologies that can complement our humanity and help us honor its full potential.

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As an idealistic international living away from her roots, I have been blessed with the gifts of technology at various stages in my life. When I left my family home for college, mobile phones saved my life by helping me connect to my family and friends living far away from me. Then, when I started an international career abroad, Skype entered into my life and helped me stay connected to my networks in different parts of the world. I-phone doubled my creativity as it enabled me to capture beautiful moments of joy and play in the form of photos/ videos or reflections that I can capture anytime, anywhere. Lastly, during the pandemic, thanks to video technologies I was able to survive months of lock-downs alone in my home in the middle of Manhattan. So, I am grateful to live in an era where we can make distances disappear and get almost anything we want with ease and comfort. Indeed, maybe too much comfort. And this is the part we will focus on now by unpacking E.O.Wilson's quote.

Paleolithic emotions: First, what is an emotion, and what is the problem with that? Emotion is energy in motion. This is what makes us human in the first place. Our capacity for feeling is what makes us alive and connected to each other. Through the movement of those energies, we grow and evolve. Our problem is not having these emotions. It is not knowing what to do with them. Not having the emotional maturity to sit with the uncomfortable feelings of fear, pain, doubt, isolation etc. This is not something we are taught in schools. (At least not yet widely) So, we try to find symptomatic solutions to our emotional triggers, simply because we do not want to face these uncomfortable feelings. And our search for a replacement usually appears in our lives in the form of 'addiction'. Historically, these have been smoking, drinking, drugs, shopping etc. Today, we easily added technology addiction into the mix as another option we can reach with ease.

At this stage, most blame tech and social media as evil but I believe that the underlying cause is more fundamental. It is a more humane problem. It is about emotional maturity. To really address this problem once for all, we need to claim our emotional sovereignty. We need to be the master of our lives and direct the energy into the right places of devotion for our evolution.

(How to do that is not a part of this reflection, as many therapies and healing modalities are addressing this topic. However, here are a few simple things I do when I am trying to regulate my technology habits: Turning off notifications, doing micro check-ins by asking how I am feeling/what I am feeling when I have the trigger to reach out to my phone, and instead of disconnecting from a potential feeling, letting it pass through me by simple deep breathing. Result over time is much better than mindless scrolling!)

Medieval institutions: In the previous section, I shared how I believe the root cause and solution resides within all of us as users and consumers of these technologies. However, this does not negate the importance and responsibility of companies shaping our future. We need more conscious companies not only exploiting our vulnerabilities but also healing our imbalances through their innovations.

Given the recent movements and discussions about a more holistic re-definition of capitalism, I would like to think that we are trending towards the right direction but this seems to be only a start. First, we need to align on a new vision for the business, and even after that managing change and leading execution (probably with new cultures and operating models) is a complex and time-consuming process, especially in large organizations that are leading most of the value creation today.

If we rely on traditional regulatory bodies, governments to help us maintain the balance during this transition, that seems to be another challenge as well. Unfortunately, most of them are not equipped with the right talent, process, and operating models to understand, access longer-term implications of these technologies, and do something about them proactively, strategically. Most of the efforts today are for minimizing already existing damage with retrospective measures introduced without enough clarity to make an impact. I am still hopeful that these institutions will get better over time but given their complexity and speed of change, they might not be the first solution providers to bring back the balance we might have lost.

(A FastCompany conference I attended this month, there was a dedicated session for responsible technology. One of the panelists- Rumman Chowdhury, Director of ML Ethics, Transparency, and Accountability for Twitter- was asked what she is worried about the most. She was excited to see improvements like mandatory audits for the wide adoption of AI-driven algorithms/decision-making systems. But overall she was very concerned about our state of maturity to execute these measures. She highlighted that the definition of an audit was not even yet defined and refined in a way that can lead to corrective action.)

God-like technology: Given today's capabilities, it might be frightening and exciting to admit that we are indeed creating technologies that are all-knowing, all-powerful. "All-good" part is still a big question but at least if we use tech in the right way, we might be able to diagnose most of our existing unconscious biases and with conscious attention and intentional corrective action, we might be able to heal our society and do more good for all. However, this promise requires all of us to understand technology, so we can co-create a better, more balanced future together.

Given its huge scalability power, technology is so unique in its potential that I believe we need to integrate it into every step of our education system. I believe it needs to be not optional but mandatory in most of the business schools, entrepreneurial, and innovation ecosystems where we build solutions shaping the culture and future of their users. We need to start asking questions about how technology might impact what we do today and how we can better leverage its strengths for improving our world. With power comes responsibility. We need to inspire entrepreneurs, designers, and leaders of the world to come together and openly discuss technology's potential for good and bad, so we can align and hopefully co-create better humane systems that are scalable and sustainable.

Only in this engaging way, I can see us using technology as a tool to better humanity, instead of technology using us to trigger vulnerable parts of our humanity.

(Over the weekend, I watched Social Dilemma, which is a documentary focusing on the dangerous effects of social media and technology in general.?It was interesting to listen to the creator of the 'like' button, Justin Rosenstein. He said that the intention behind the 'like' button was to spread positivity and love in the world. They did not think about the downstream effects of teens getting depression because they do not have enough likes. This demonstrates how we might start the journey with naive intentions and end up in places we never assumed to be in the end. No creator or company can indeed own the full journey and be fully responsible for the overall impact of the creation but, more awareness, education, and collaboration might help us to do better than today.)

This has been a long reflection. As you can tell, this is a topic I am passionate about! If you have been following me, probably you know that I believe in the power of the ethical use of technology. If applied in a conscious way, I hope it can help us lead change for a better future where we can generate value at scale and shape the shared destiny of humanity.

Overall, with all I have seen and experienced, am I concerned about the direction of technology? My answer is yes. But I am more concerned about the level of consciousness/ the awareness we operate as humans, which I think is the mother of all symptomatic problems we deal with today.

We created those technologies. But today, we seem to be consumed by them. However, I am still optimistic to believe that we can change this paradigm. We can dream of a different reality, a more humane one where we honor the full potential of humanity.

There are different ways to mobilize this vision but the most important and the easiest one we can start today is the one that starts with us! As users and creators of these technologies.

Hopefully, self-aware individuals/communities who are healthily regulating their attention and actions can build better technologies of the future, while we are transforming the traditional ones we have today.

Is this an ambitious vision?

-Probably, yes.

Do I think it is worth trying?

-Do we have another option?