My take is that human technology is tech that’s 100% aligned with the interests of the person using it. In other words, I’m the customer and I’m an empowered customer who has options and understands my choices.
The reason tech is inhumane today, is the same reason the US healthcare system strikes patients as being so inhumane. With most of the tech we use, the advertiser is the customer. They are the one that pays, and through the magic of the market, they get what they want. Healthcare has the same kind of customer problem. If you’re the patient, you’re not the customer…
If you look at the number of dollars that advertisers spend to capture 9+ hours of our lives each day through technology and media… it’s less than 25 cents an hour. A few hundred dollars a year. Consumers have the money to buy their lives back. Now, under the old broadcast models for radio and TV, there was no feasible way for consumers to have the tech work for them. It had to be broadcast and advertiser supported.
But with the internet, with mass personalization and multiple payment models, there’s no reason I can’t have a phone OS, a web browser, a news source, a platform to connect with friends… that serves my interests since I am the customer who pays for it. My hope for Human Tech is that we raise enough awareness so people are willing to start paying for technology that serves their own interests… and then this community can give them lots of good choices to buy.
Now, I would want to buy tech that has the features shown in the original post. But if we make the right person the customer, I think all those other things will flow out from that.