Technological innovations promise us a greener, richer, smarter, and above all more connected world. For example, bettors now tend to play in casino online, instead of spending more time and money in a physical casino. Housewives are also more likely to shop online rather than waiting in line at the supermarket. So, can tech save us from all evil, or is it just a tool to be used by humans?
This great mass has a credo: “Technological progress can serve the common good, indicates the 2019 press kit: GreenTech to save our planet and fight against climate change, EdTech to improve access to education, blockchain to reduce poverty and help the emancipation of the most vulnerable populations, artificial intelligence to optimize social impact and digital inclusion … “
The wave of “Tech for Good” therefore continues to grow … Innovation seems to provide so many solutions that it becomes synonymous with progress, hope, and a bright future. Stop looking for happiness, technology will bring it to you.
Tech for good … but do we know what good is? Can technology make us happy?
A few voices, however, come to break this technologist unanimity. The ecological transition will go through uses and political decisions, not only through technologies. Behind the slogan “tech for good”, do we know what this good is promised to our humanity; do we even know who is the man we intend to save and make happy?
Is tech at the service of people in all their dimensions?
In a sense, digital technologies have operated a revolution: by addressing the multitude, they place the user at the heart of their business model; by scrutinizing the expectations of their “avatar”, they invent fast, simple, and inexpensive services.
Listening and serving each other is not so bad. But who is this human that we want so much to fill? One animal species among others, a fabulous machine orchestrated by a super-brain, a body that needs to be augmented or transformed?
For some people, man is not limited to these mechanistic visions. He is at the same time body, mind, and soul, hence his dignity and his particular vocation to love by unifying the various dimensions of his being.
As early as 1940, psychologist Abraham Maslow also identified a pyramid of human needs: at the base, we have physiological needs, then needs for security, and on the upper steps, needs for affection and love, for esteem and self-fulfillment.
To forget or thwart this in our innovations is to miss out on the real “common good”.
Does tech give way to human relations? Illustration with the human relations, so essential in business, in society, in family, and in all personal life. Faced with technological innovation, this is, therefore, a good criterion for discernment: does service stimulate relationships between people, or does it suppress them?
During an Edtech startup pitch (for education), a young entrepreneur presents a chatbot (conversational robot) responsible for welcoming new students to the university by guiding them to the services to know. Will it meet their deep need to make friends and build human relationships? Not sure.
On the same day, a young EMLyon graduate, Diane Lenne, presented WAP, (“We are peers”), a methodology that enables learning between colleagues from the same organization. The “peers” share their knowledge on a subject in small groups of six, and an application helps them to formalize and synthesize their exchanges. Based on sharing and mutual listening, the tool reveals the strength of collective intelligence. She bets on human wealth where others overlook it. Everything is therefore a matter of choice. The WAP application is just one of many digital tools that facilitate collaboration and sharing: in business, they can be invaluable in helping to communicate and work as a team. On this point, tech is rather pioneering: messaging, social networks, file sharing, and even e-learning tools make it possible to interact and co-construct. Scientific research itself is collaborative by asking citizens, for example, to observe certain natural environments or certain species.
So does technology make us happy? In most cases YES! At least they help us achieve happiness through interactions with other people.
