The Tech Humanist Manifesto

This revolution must build on that foundation, faithfully. It must respect the collective dignity of a global community. And it must always remember its origins: the restless imagination of an otherwise unremarkable species of hominid, so mystified by its own nature that it now seeks to re-create it in silicon. This revolution must, therefore, be u

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The tendency to think of A.I. as a magical problem solver is indicative of a desire to avoid the hard work that building a better world requires. That hard work will involve things like addressing wealth inequality and taming capitalism. For technologists, the hardest work of all—the task that they most want to avoid—will be questioning the assumpt

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I hear the “automation is destiny” argument all the time—especially in Silicon Valley, where people tend to talk about technological progress as a speeding train we either have to climb aboard or get run over by—and I get why it’s tempting to believe. For a long time, I believed it myself. But it’s wrong. And deep down, we all know it’s wrong. From... See more

We can choose a purely technocratic approach—one that sees each of us as a set of financial and material needs to be satisfied—and simply transfer enough cash to all people so that they don’t starve or go homeless. In fact, this notion of universal basic income seems to be becoming more and more popular these days. But in making that choice I belie

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