Humane Tech

What Does Humane Tech Mean?

Humane tech is a term that refers to the goal of achieving technologies that aid humans in key human goals instead of exploiting humans for profit. The struggle for humane tech can also be construed as a movement to ensure that technology is contributing to the common good instead of harming human citizens in various ways.

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Techopedia Explains Humane Tech

A nonprofit called the Center for Humane Technology seeks to promote humane tech, talking about a "digital attention crisis" where current forms of technology may have a negative impact on human life, in this case, by extracting attention from “life in the real world.” (The social phenomenon of “phubbing” provides a handy example).

The struggle for humane tech has its roots in philosophies expounded on by such figures as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft's Bill Gates, and Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX fame. All of these leaders (and many others) have suggested that building humane and ethical technologies is something that requires focus and concentration from societies.

In general, humane tech serves as a useful marker for the advancement of technologies today.

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Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…