I coined the term Androrithms in my 2016 book Technology vs Humanity – some 10 years ago. Here is what I said back then:)
Chapter 2: Tech vs. Us (Page 30)
- “Being human is largely about those things that we cannot—for the foreseeable future—compute, measure, algorithmically define, simulate, or completely understand. What makes us human is not mathematical or even just chemical or biological. It involves those things that are largely unnoticed, unsaid, subconscious, ephemeral, and unobjectifiable. These are the human essences that I like to call androrithms that we absolutely must keep even if they appear to be clumsy, complicated, slow, risky, or inefficient compared to nonbiological systems, computers, and robots.”
- “We should not attempt to mend, fix, upgrade, or even eradicate what makes us human; rather, we should design technology to know and respect these differences—and protect them. Unfortunately, the slow but systematic reduction or even discarding of androrithms—those elusive traits that make us human—has already started all around us. For example, social networks allow us to create our own profiles as we see fit, and revel in our fabricated identities, rather than wrestle with the one we actually have in real life, aka in our meatspace.”
- “While of course there are overlaps between our social-network and real-life identities, the face-to-face, embodied socializing quality of androrithms is now increasingly replaced with artful screens and clever algorithms, such as for online content curation and matchmaking.”
Chapter 3: The Megashifts
- “This assumption of continued and pervasive penetration of technology points towards a future where what cannot be digitized and/or automated (see Automating Society, chapter 4) could become extremely valuable. As discussed in chapter 2, these androrithms capture essential human qualities such as emotions, compassion, ethics, happiness, and creativity. While algorithms, software, and artificial intelligence (AI) will increasingly “eat the world” (as venture capitalist Marc Andreessen likes to say), we must place the same value on androrithms—those things which make us uniquely human.”
- “As previously expensive products and services become cheap and abundant, androrithms must take center stage with technology if we are to remain a society that is concerned with human flourishing. We certainly would not want to go from software eating the world to software cheating the world!”
- “We also need to build true human values and a holistic ecosystem that generates lasting value for everyone; not just more algorithms but also replenished androrithms. We must take a holistic view to really make a difference.”
Chapter 5: The Internet of Inhuman Things (Page 65)
“Have we paused to ask ourselves the difference between algorithms and what makes us essentially human—what I call the androrithms?”
Chapter 9: Taking the Happenstance out of Happiness (Page 115)
- “We tend to ignore androrithms in favour of algorithms because we like shortcuts and simplifications.”
- “Experiences are based on those unique qualities that make us human—our androrithms.”
- “While these are clever ideas, the current schemes for realizing the IoT are almost completely void of attention to human considerations, androrithms, and ethical concerns.”
- “Will we eventually be a species completely devoid of consciousness, mystery, spirituality, and soul, simply because there’s no room for these androrithms in this coming machine age?”
- “Well-being isn’t algorithmic—it is androrithmic, based on complex things such as trust, compassion, emotion, and intuition.”
- “The complex androrithmic values must remain the domain of human beings, both because we are better at creating nuanced expressions of them and because direct engagement with those problems is key to developing eudaemonia—deeper happiness.”
Chapter 12: Decision Time (Page 158)
- “The danger is that if we don’t spend as much time and resources on the androrithms (those qualities that make us human) as we do on the algorithms, not only will technology end up running our lives, but we will also be forced, tricked, or otherwise cajoled into becoming technology ourselves. We shall have become “the tools of our tools.”
- “To allow androrithms, those uniquely human things such as imagination, chance, mistakes, and inefficiencies, to continue to matter, even if they are undesired by or incompatible with technology”
