Sign the Manifesto
“This third decade [of the 21st century] is likely to decide our fate. Will we make the digital future better, or will it make us worse? Will it be a place that we can call home?”
Shoshana Zuboff
Professor at Harvard University
Preamble
Technology can be a wonderful tool for humanity, one that has allowed it to overcome many obstacles and afflictions over the centuries. However, we believe that today’s prevailing paradigm of technological development is not entirely aligned with humanity’s interests, and that there is an urgent need for the kind of deep public awareness that leads to a call for hard political measures to regain control. We want to continue to enjoy the advantages technology offers us, without being forced to endure some of the most harmful ramifications it can bring with it, either by design or through lack of regulation.
A substantial part of the digital technology and AI currently being promoted fosters an environment in which human beings are vulnerable, and their freedom and integrity are threatened. They run the risk of having their will conditioned, of not being able to make decisions autonomously and without external interference, of living under a state of surveillance in which intense control is exercised over their lives, or of finding it increasingly difficult to discern the truth. If we allow this model to consolidate and take hold, the world shaped by some of today’s technologies may irreversibly become one in which humanity itself has no place, because the logics at play do not recognise its unique nature and its interests. It could even lead to the very extinction of our species.
Faced with this existential risk to humanity, this MANIFESTO sets out a series of urgent measures to regain control over digital technology and ensure that it remains at the service of human beings, whilst containing, as effectively as possible, the adverse consequences it presents.
A Manifesto
Regaining Control Over Digital Technology
We stand at a historic turning point, where the power of technology is growing exponentially and presenting a challenge unprecedented in the history of our species.
The accelerated technological deployment we are witnessing is taking place with little democratic control. As the short-term benefits of many technological innovations tend to be more easily perceptible than the risks they entail, the hasty adoption of technological applications — by individuals, professionals, businesses, administrations, educational institutions — is a temptation that is difficult to resist in the absence of clear barriers and protocols that evaluate their implications, and ensure that they respect fundamental rights and do not contravene our general interest.
Given this context, we reject the view that we are facing an inexorable technological determinism of which we can only be spectators. On the contrary, we are convinced that we must act to agree on a framework that can be applied to reduce technological control over humans and in which technological development is at the service of humanity and not the other way around.
FULL manifesto at OFFm.org >>>
Some highlights
- The technology cna be used by individuals or by public or private organisations, to exert control over others.
- Our individual and collective dependence on digital infrastructures constitutes a vulnerability that can be exploited for malicious purposes.
- Increased autonomy of technology means less human control. Machines are increasingly issuing orders to humans.
Proposal
This manifesto does not in any way intend to oppose technological development per se, and indeed we acknowledge its many advantages, but rather to challenge political authorities and civil society on the price humanity is paying and the risks it assumes if it continues to accept a paradigm of technological deployment without discernment and democratic control, and to encourage urgent action to minimise this cost.
FULL manifesto (EN) at OFFm.org >>>
