What is humane innovation and is Wyser delivering it?

I read an article in the MIT Technology Review with the title “We used to get excited about technology. What happened?”, and I found myself nodding and agreeing with the journalist Shannon Vallor. So much of the innovation we see today is less about the problem being solved and more about the long-term value the company creating the tech can extract from their users’ data. One commentator on Shannon’s Twitter thread wrote “today in tech we are the product, not the primary beneficiary.”

The conclusion of the article is that technology today is no longer about expanding the frontier of humane innovation (innovation that serves us all); and warns we risk becoming alienated from one of the most fundamental ways we care for the world and one another if we allow this to continue.

Of course, after thinking this through I started to consider Wyser’s services and products, and asked the question are we expanding the frontier of humane innovation?

Firstly…

What is humane innovation? Shannon says it is innovation that serves us all, one that is not primarily focussed on monetising the users’ data.

Is that right, is that enough of an explanation? Of course, I reached for the (digital) dictionary:

Humane - to show compassion, empathy or consideration for humans or animals.

Innovation – a process by which a domain, product, or service is renewed and brought up to date by applying new processes, introducing new techniques, or establishing successful ideas to create new value.

Monetising user data - at its most basic level, data monetisation involves finding or collecting data that can be sold for a profit. For social media, their most precious commodity is the personal data of their users, which typically falls into three categories that data brokers, or businesses, might be searching for:

1.???????Tech usage data - how you interact with your phone.

2.??????General life data – Social media posts, location data, search-engine queries, etc.

3.??????Highly sensitive data – Health records, social security numbers, and banking details.

Secondly…

Applying these definitions to what we do at Wyser, what did I conclude?

At Wyser we care about society and about community. It is such a strong part of our values, it shines through the work we do both within our consultancy and in the products we build. We know what we do helps increase access to professional advice and guidance by using AI to increase productivity.

For example, we are working closely with Citizens Advice Scotland and CivTech Scotland to develop a Minimum Viable Product that can be used by any organisation in the public, private or third sectors that provides guidance and advice.

Our solution, with appropriate consents, listens into conversations between advisors and their clients, automatically extracts key information that summarises the conversations, and accurately populates the organisation’s CRM system. To be used for follow-up advice with citizens and trend analysis that helps Citizens Advice understand and respond to emerging trends.

This invisible unobtrusive tech layer leverages Wyser’s deep understanding and expertise in Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML).

In summary, we make public services more accessible by increasing capacity and by making the initial triage of customer enquiries/cases more efficient. That must be humane innovation and in no way do we monetise the data.

So yes, we are building humane innovation and if you would like to see the prototype of our latest service on 8th February then please register. I’ve added the link in the comments below this post.