Missed parts 1-5? Head here to catch up.
A quick recap.
I’ve been grappling with a general unease about what’s going on in tech, and as someone embedded in this industry I’ve wanted to know exactly what I’m feeling, why, and what to do.
I’ve been feeling overwhelmed, and it stems from three compounding factors:
We’ve gone all in on tech, globally and at a staggering pace;
We don’t yet know what we’re doing; and,
We don’t yet know what the tech is doing to us.
At this moment, we’re in a liminal space and the range of possible futures is vast.
Whilst it feels like there's an inherent tension between our biological design and the digital world we’re increasingly inhabiting, it’s not clear if the same tech that introduced this tension may resolve or exacerbate it further.
With all this ambiguity, what is there to do?
I won’t take up arguments here around regulation, accountability, governance transparency, AI explainability, splitting up big tech, etc. etc. I’m interested in what I can do starting today - what are the personal commitments that I can make to contribute with purpose.
My three commitments moving forward:
1. Equip more diverse experts to sit at the table
More diverse capabilities are needed to ask the required questions that will ensure human flourishing is the outcome of all this tech. As tech people, we are experts in tools, building materials and problem solving methods; we are usually not the best experts in the systemic, societal contexts in which complex problems must be solved.
Yes this means ensuring demographic diversity, but it is more than that. As our most pressing challenges are wicked problems, we need diverse skills and knowledge in the teams building, governing, implementing and evaluating these solutions. We need diverse capabilities in our leaders.
This requires us to move beyond the traditional model of tech folk consulting with non-tech subject matter experts. We need to equip experts from various disciplines to scrutinise technological decisions through different lenses. On this point, we don't need more engineers or product managers as much as we need more people drawing on broader perspectives who can engage in the decision making dialogue.
Having entered tech over a decade ago without any technical experience myself, I understand the intimidation when entering a conversation with stakeholders far more technical than you. Not knowing what you’re supposed to know, what’s okay not to know, how to work with people whose work you can’t read, whose jargon changes every week. The learning curve is steep.
In my consulting work, I'm committed to supporting those navigating this transition and upskilling — whether they're domain experts adapting to industry changes, board members evaluating technical decisions, or non-technical founders working with engineering teams. (If any of these are you, get in touch).
These folk hold critical knowledge and experience that we in tech, don’t. We need to help them participate as genuine partners in building for our complex world ahead.
2. Deepen our understanding of the nature of technology
Humanity needs a far more nuanced understanding of technology's fundamental nature and its impact on us. Our goal should be to clearly articulate when and why technology is or isn't appropriate for a proposed solution. We should be able to say with confidence: "We won't use tech for X because we understand Y about tech, and X requires something else" We need to know enough, to know we’re not building jelly castles.
Professor Shannon Vallor is a brilliant contributor in this conversation. I recommend anyone to listen to her discussion with Scott Stephens titled What is AI doing to our humanity?, where she discusses themes from her most recent book The AI Mirror. The 30min podcast is a great entry point to this conversation.
I also recently came across Allison Pugh, Professor of Sociology at John Hopkins University who talks about the role of dignity in this space. This resonates deeply and is something I want to look into more; a clear boundary for the use of tech may be where the task requires dignity - something technology is unable to confer.
Alongside my career in tech I study philosophy, equipping myself to thoughtfully tackle these fundamental questions. I’m going to keep pulling at this thread, using these skills to advance the conversation.
3. Keep building
Some days the overwhelm tempts me to step away from building with tech; to become an outsider looking in. But, I love building great products with amazing teams and I care deeply about getting it right. When we do, it is fascinating, immensely rewarding and genuinely valuable to the people and spaces we’re trying to serve.
Further, there are many internal pressures, sub-cultures and dynamics that would be hard to understand or impact from afar. If I am to help build dialogue between the technical and non-technical worlds, it will help to have a foot in both.
As a product leader with experience building with AI, there are so many opportunities emerging every day to progress and contribute to the conversation by doing. My commitment is to keep working with brilliant tech folk, and show we can be advocates for deep consideration of the human impact, ask uncomfortable but necessary questions, and do this whilst still building high quality, high impact tech solutions - where appropriate.
Get in touch and let me know how I can help.
To keep learning, I’d love to hear from others wrangling with these questions, from any discipline, tech or non-tech. In particular I’d love to hear what you find are the barriers to partnership and what would help you.
Alternatively, if you feel you’re navigating this well already, I’d love to learn about how you’re doing it.
I’m a product consultant so we can also work directly on this together, and bring this mindset to any range of product challenges. Head to my website to find out more about how I can help.