The new course aims in part to answer that question and speaks directly to rehabilitated techs like Read. It contains eight modules and is intended to take approximately eight hours in total, plus additional time spent on worksheets, reflection exercises, and optional discussion groups via Zoom. Read, who binged the course, says he completed it in about two weeks.
For people who have spent years studying the harmful externalities of the tech industry, the course may lack insight. Yes, social media companies are taking advantage of human weaknesses – what’s new? But for those just arriving at those ideas, it provides some useful starting points. One module focuses on the psychology of persuasive technology and includes a “humane design guide” for creating more respectful products. Another encourages technologists to identify their highest values and the way those values interact with their work. At the end of the lesson, a worksheet invites them to imagine that they are drinking tea at age 70 and looking back on their lives. “What is the career you look back on? What are the ways you have impacted the world?”
Subtle? Not exactly. Still, Fernando believes the tech industry needs a wake-up call so badly that these worksheets and journal prompts could give tech workers a moment to think about what they’re building. Suparna Chhibber, who quit a job at Amazon in 2020, says the pace of the tech industry doesn’t always leave room for people to think about their purpose or values. “People get paid a lot to push things through, and if you don’t, you’re basically failing,” she says.
Chhibber signed up for the Foundations of Humane Technology around the same time as Read and found a community of like-minded people waiting to discuss the material via Zoom. (The Center for Humane Technology is leading the sessions and plans to continue them.) Read described these sessions as group therapy: “You get to know people with whom you feel safe to explore these topics. You can open up.” It critically reminded him that while many people don’t understand why he gave up his prestigious job, he’s not alone.
The Center for Humane Technology is not the first organization to create a toolkit for concerned techies. The Tech and Society Solutions Lab has released two, in 2018 and 2020, designed to encourage more ethical conversations within tech companies and startups. But the center’s new direction is new in the way it seeks to create a community out of the nascent “human tech” movement. It is unlikely that a single engineer involved will change a company’s business model or practices. But together, a group of concerned engineers can make all the difference.
The Center for Humane Technology says more than 3,600 techs have already started the course and several hundred have completed it. “This is by far the largest effort we’ve made to gather humane technologists,” said David Jay, the center’s chief of mobilization. The center says it has amassed a long list of concerned technologists over the years and plans to promote the course directly with them. It also plans to spread the word through a few partner organizations and through its “allies within a wide variety of tech companies, including many of the major social media platforms.”
If ever there was a time for the tech industry to collaborate and reconstruct its values, it would be now: tech workers are in high demand and companies are increasingly subject to the whims of their desires. Yet workers who have tried to raise flags have not always been listened to. It seems unlikely that these companies will reorient their business incentives – away from profit to social awareness – without greater pressures, such as regulation. Chhibber, who says she tried to introduce the principles of “human tech” into her teams at Amazon, didn’t think it was enough to change the overall company culture. “If the business model is breathing on your back,” she says, “that will affect what you do.”
