Digital Ethics & AI Power
Technology doesn’t have ethics – but humanity’s future depends on it!
Ethics is knowing the difference between doing what you have the right (or the power) to do and what is the right thing to do.
THE ETHICS OF TECHNOLOGY
Embrace technology… but don’t become it!
I started speaking about digital ethics and the power of exponential technologies such as AI more than a decade ago. It also became a central theme of my 2016 book, Technology vs Humanity: The Coming Clash Between Humans and Machines, at that moment, a rather scary subtitle that now seems very prescient.
Back then, I often said that “technology is morally neutral until we use it,” riffing on William Gibson. Today, given the hyper-exponential progress of AI and what I call the Intelligence Revolution, I would amend that statement:
Technology will become morally corrosive, dehumanising our society, if we deploy it without questioning its design, purpose, consequences, and safeguards.
And this is not just about AI: it is about every game-changing technology that is already here, or arriving soon: quantum computing, synthetic biology, humanoid robotics, genetic engineering and more.
My core argument is simple: while we are rapidly making scientific breakthroughs and gaining god-like technological powers, we have invested far too little time and money on agreeing on the Telos – the purpose, the direction, and the ultimate destination of our progress. Our outdated, pre-AI economic system continues to reward the relentless creation and deployment of game-changing tools, often without asking why they should exist, who they should serve, who is in charge, or what future they are bound to create.
Technology has no ethics – but humanity will collapse without them. Societies are driven by technology but defined by ethics.
We must invest as much in our TELOS (Purpose and Direction) as we invest in our TOOLS (Science and Technology)
If we continue to develop exponentially powerful technologies (such as AI or AGI / ASI) that may soon surpass human capabilities and therefore exceed our capacity to control them, and if we don’t invest equally in defining their purpose, governance and limitations, we will not create a Good Future (but rather, The Bad Future) – We will instead engineer our own decline.
The current debate on AI and the future of humanity illustrates this perfectly. AI is fundamentally transforming science, research, education, work, healthcare, government, and virtually every other aspect of society. Nothing will remain untouched – and we’re only at the beginning! Despite all the amazing benefits of AI – if we fail to prepare, now, for the many negative side-effects such as the disruption of labor markets, the concentration of power, the likely erosion of human agency, the harrowing military, warfare and cyber-security implications; and if we fail to establish meaningful guardrails against existential risks; if we fail to collaborate internationally on the non-proliferation of technologies capable of causing catastrophic harm – then, the Bad Future becomes not merely possible, but increasingly likely.
Organizations must embed ethics, human and planetary values (the 5Ps) and long-term purpose into everything they do. We must invest as much in telos as we invest in tools. Only then can we ensure genuine human and planetary flourishing – a future in which technology serves humanity, rather than humanity serving technology.
ALL POSTS ABOUT Digital Ethics
Gerd’s MEMES
Twice Upon a Time: Gerd’s 2022 film (still timely)
AI is gearing up to become the world's OS. Not humans - machines. Watch this film on 2 potential futures.
Twice Upon a Time: The Good Future or the Bad Future, 2030?
The 5Ps: Gerd’s Roadmap to The Good Future
People, Planet, Purpose, Peace and Prosperity is Gerd's credo, and his roadmap to The Good Future
Have a look at Gerd's microsite on the 5Ps
Awesome Humans
Flip the VUCA! Velocity, Unorthodoxy, Co-Creation, Awesomeness
WATCH this keynote excerpt→
Hellven
/ˈhɛl.vən/ · noun · coined 2018
Exponential technological progress could be heaven or it could be hell - it all depends on what we do with the god-like powers we are now accumulating. We don't just need tools we also need TELOS.
Read Technology vs Humanity book preview→
Androrithms
/ˈan.droʊ.rɪð.əmz/ · noun, plural
The human-only qualities no algorithm will ever replace — creativity, empathy, intuition, imagination, meaning, moral judgement. The antidote to algorithms. Gerd's neologism from his book "Technology vs Humanity"
Visit the Androrithms website→
Campaigns & outposts
GERD’S Quotes on Digital Ethics
“Ethics is knowing the difference between doing what you have the right (or the power) to do and what is the right thing to do”
“We often don’t need to slow down technology – we need to speed up responsibility”
“In the era of AI, its no longer about knowing more – it’s knowing what matters”
“Trust isn’t digital, happiness isn’t a program, and relationships aren’t code”
“Our biggest challenge right now is not (yet) that machines will take over, but that we become too much like them”
“This is a key challenge of the Intelligence Revolution: Abundance on the outside, scarcity on the inside”
“The biggest danger is not yet that machines will take over, but that we come too much like them”
