Technology – Page 3 – Questioning

What makes technology ethical?

This question contains all kinds of interesting angles and even assumptions, but one thing that feels core to me has to do with listening and looking for blind spots.

There’s this mythos in tech, which not-coincidentally is largely led by people with a particular kind of status, that of the founder-visionary. And oh, boy, the last couple of years has given us plenty of case studies on the failures of vision.

Status and power has a negative effect on empathy and compassion. (Check out Dacher Ketner’s The Power Paradox and see citations below). “Visionaries” often start with cultural advantages, start succeeding within the parameters of scale/massive fundraising/personal wealth and then parlay that into behaviour that seems almost delusional.

Building with ethics in mind, technology product makers start with understanding the people who will use the product. To do that, we don’t just speculate or transpose our own expectations about what matters to people who we want to serve. We talk to them, listening not only to learn what problems they have but also why these challenges matter to them and what emotions, motives, and aspirations surround the problem.

Let’s not be visionaries, let’s be creative, compassionate, and collaborative.

Most likely, we are limited by our own backgrounds and lived experience as technology builders. So we also can include more people when we explore solutions. Early-stage entrepreneurs can develop communities and advisory boards that can open the door to innovative and thoughtful ways to address the needs and motives of customers.

There are a lot of ideas that are built using resources and energy that were not developed around what people care about or how the business will serve them. De-risking with research, prototype tests, and other discovery practices can save not only time and energy, but also lead to more success in creating real value.

I work with other product people trying to change systems toward sustainable, human, equitable outcomes. And for me and for other product folks, it’s not always simple.

Right now, we have some pretty unsustainable practices around actually building technology. One problem is funding. Behind most venture capital, there’s the idea of creating wealth for its own sake as opposed to creating people-centred, sustainable businesses. VC-backed tech entrepreneurs build businesses to grow and “capture markets” rather than to develop long-term relationships with those they serve. And, perhaps even more than other kinds of corporations in the US and other ‘business-friendly’ locales, tech companies often take advantage of public infrastructure without investing in local communities.

It’s very hard to build anything in tech without using tools like cloud infrastructure owned by big corporations that avoid examining their own cultural and climate impacts in the interest of short-term shareholder gains. This doesn’t even include the problems of digital surveillance and bias that are introduced in the ecosystem we’ve created around building technology.

Ethics can feel really squishy when you’re a founder trying to figure out how to get something off the ground in this context. I know for myself, I have been moving a lot more slowly because I’m looking for opportunities to build differently, but I also know that I am not going to be able to avoid choices that have downstream effects in building anything.

My hope is that starting with listening and understanding, choosing communities to serve that themselves demand good stewardship, and constantly looking for ways to be creative and not accept the status quo will ultimately lead to a product that contributors will feel proud of.

Further reading