By Making Tech More Human, Are We Losing Our Humanity?

What has changed?

We might be a few years off from having a Sophia in every business or home, but it’s not hard to see what technology has already done to our livelihoods; it’s been estimated that technology has taken over 90 per cent of the jobs humans used to do in the past 100 years.

Think driverless trains, supermarket self-checkouts, automated airport bag drop-offs and even the tasks your computer can now perform in seconds that once required a human being’s mind power.

When it comes to everyday life, technology is constantly making headlines for its ability to make us “cold” or “impersonal” — we all know someone who is glued to their screen while on their commute, when hanging out with friends and even at the dinner table.

So is technology also robbing us of our humanity, those qualities that make us humane and kind?

There can be good and bad to most things in life; it all depends on what path you follow. Some of the world’s tech giants are starting to pay more attention to the good, exploring the humanity their innovations can enhance.

Do the right thing

Any corporate slogan can be easy to keep in mind, but it can be harder to put into action.

For Google, it seems it is actually taking steps to live by its “do the right thing” motto.

The tech company’s AI For Social Good initiative is well under way, which aims to support business ideas that use artificial intelligence to address societal and environmental challenges.

Selected organisations will receive support from Google’s AI experts, a share in a US$25 million funding pool, as well as consulting. Google is now currently reviewing proposals, with grant recipients announced later this year.

It’s not the first social good initiative Google has run, the company says “since 2005, Google.org has invested in innovative organisations that are using technology to build a better world”.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai once said, “The right moral compass is trying hard to think about what customers want.”

As long as Google continues to champion its “do the right thing” motto, a moral that underpins how most humans try to live their lives, there could be hope of using technology to help us actually be more humane.

Tech for social impact

The end of humanity?

In his book Technology versus Humanity, Gerd Leonhard says, “Humanity will change more in the next 20 years than the previous 300 years” because of technology.

There’s that saying: “We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”

As entrepreneurs and leaders of 2019, we now have the power to change humanity at a rapid rate. It’s a responsibility we shouldn’t take lightly.

It’s clear that the big end of town is recognising the benefits of being socially driven; Google is focused on “do the right thing”, Microsoft on empowerment, and even Facebook has a mission to give “people the power to build community and bring the world closer together”.

If we think about how we want humanity to be in the future, we need to start with technology today.

How will your next technological innovation shape the human race?