I don't understand what it means: "Humanizing Technology"

Lately, we hear a lot about the concept of "Humanizing Technology", and I have to admit that I am not sure I understand it.

Those who talk about this issue use the phrase: "Technology at the service of People, not the other way around", and finally they sentence with "People at the center".

And I still don't understand what they mean... I have an intuition, but I can't build a coherent and consistent discourse.

So, I pitched the question to friends and co-workers. Here are some of the contributions that have helped me the most, combined with my personal interpretations: What does it mean to Humanize Technology?

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Some answers have had a "functional" view of the question, in line with the opinion that "humanizing" means improving technology to make it easier for people, more accessible, more intuitive, more "user friendly"... which has led me to think that being able to access Technology should be a "fundamental right". Implicitly it is recognizing that Technology is good (I agree) so we all have the right to enjoy it. And for this it is necessary to eliminate the digital divide, which is one of the problems that have also been pointed out as objectives of "humanizing technology".

By making technology accessible and easier to use, we will expand its use exponentially to more people, environments, and uses, which has also aroused some misgivings that underscore the advancement of technology in almost every aspect of our lives (and they are right). They highlight a danger. If technology does things that people used to do, we will stop learning to do those things (this is something that has happened with all technologies).

And if technology does more and more jobs, if one machine can produce for 1,000 people, will we lose our jobs? It is a fact that many will disappear. Others will also be created, but no one can know for sure what the final tally will be.

The key point will be to choose what things we want to stop doing, and finally we will forget how to do it. Just last week this phrase went viral: “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes, not my writing and art”.

?Which I subscribe. Although grey areas appear again... What should be the tasks to be automated? Of course the most mechanical, and not the creative ones. So where do we draw the line on creativity? On the other hand, the great painter Pablo Picasso already said it: "The muses must find you working" or Thomas Edison also said: "genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration". If we avoid all the effort, will we be killing Picasso's creativity and Edison's Innovation?

Someone has pointed out in the same sense: If everything is done by machines, we will forget to think (but have calculators and computers made us less intelligent?).

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Another contribution advocates making Technology more Human in the sense that it is more similar to people. Make People and Technology indistinguishable. Which brings to mind two reflections:

On the one hand, the hyper-realistic humanoid robots in the style of "West World". They would be the Deep Fake of robotics. Will it create a dilemma for us? Precisely in the first chapter of "West World" there is a fantastic scene where a customer (human) meets an employee (humanoid). The woman says to the man: "you want to ask me a question, ask it". And the hesitant man asks: "Are you human?", to which the humanoid brilliantly replies: "If you don't notice the difference, does it really matter?" ... it gives food for thought, and a lot.??

Perhaps the time will come when we will prefer to relate to machines than to people (imperfect, unpredictable and with mood swings), and it is another aspect that worries us, so much so that the new European law on AI (EU AI Act) establishes that users (people) must be notified if they are interacting with AI systems (text or voice bots) and not with people.?

Laws are never enough, they define strong limits but then there are an infinite number of nuances. As the saying goes, "Prevention is better than cure", and any Technology should be subjected to the examination of an ethical code, beyond the legal and normative, that verifies its positive effect and minimizes the negative, in the same phase of ideation and design.

Without a doubt, technology has helped us to improve the relationship between people. The telephone, videoconferences, WhatsApp and social networks bring us closer to people who are physically distant. We can know about each other (reality or posturing) at the moment and continuously... and paradoxically, they also distance us from those people who are physically closer.

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The second reflection is on whether we really want technology to be as human-like as possible, with all our mistakes and imperfections, or do we want it to make us better. We use glasses to be able to see better, vehicles to move faster, machines to produce more and better... Although the other extreme is a world where all decisions are made from pure and aseptic logic (where do we put empathy and humanity? ... and who decides that he is empathetic and human?).

I note that "Humanizing Technology" is largely the answer to the perception of a threat: the incorporation of Technology into our lives on a massive and increasingly rapid scale.

A threat with some obvious dangers, such as loss of privacy, increased control, new forms of insecurity, and also in the form of (justified) fear of the unknown. People don't like Uncertainty, and if you think you like it, you're fooling yourself. (Will I be able to keep up?, Will I be out of date?, How will AI affect us?... No one can predict it.)

It has happened several times in the history of Humanity, from the discovery of fire, through each of the Industrial Revolutions (that's why they are called "Revolutions").

See the "Luddism" movement ("Luddism was a movement led by English artisans in the nineteenth century, who protested between 1811 and 1816 against new machines that destroyed employment." Wikipedia). And today, with their nuances and differences, they could be: "Humanizing Technology", "Stop Mobiles phones", or "Slow life", among others.

Technology has no life of its own.

(NO!. AI will never have a consciousness of its own and will exterminate Humanity).

Technology is a human "creation", and we ourselves are solely responsible for any unintended effects, for avoiding them and for remedying them if necessary.

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Thank you all for your very interesting contributions.

#Technology #Humanizing #Laws #Ethics #Society #Future

#Tecnologia #Humanizar #Leyes #Etica #Sociedad #Futuro

#Tecnologia #Humanizar #Leyes #Etica #Sociedad #Futuro

#Technology #Humanizing #Laws #Ethics #Society #Future

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