We bring together people, organizations, and ideas to tackle wicked tech & society issues and co-create a tech future aligned with the public interest.
How does All Tech Is Human affect change?
All Tech Is Human is collectively solving complex tech and society issues by uniting key stakeholders in the community to better understand values, best practices, and tradeoffs.
Our strength lies in moving at the speed of tech, leveraging collective intelligence, and diversifying the pipeline to allow for a more holistic approach, altering the DNA of tech development, and helping society catch up to the speed of innovation.
Founded in 2018 and based in Manhattan with a global community, All Tech Is Human is a non-profit organization that has intentionally brought together a diverse range of individuals and organizations across civil society, government, and industry. We aim to grow the Responsible Tech field by promoting knowledge-sharing and collaboration among multiple stakeholders to co-create a better tech future.
The community we are cultivating is a powerful force to affect the underlying tech pipeline, as new voices are entering the field who deeply care about the impact of technology.
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What is the Responsible Tech movement?
We are committed to co-creating a better society. Given how much digital technologies impact our society, we need a field that is as diverse and multidisciplinary as we are.
The name of our organization, All Tech Is Human, is meant as a call-to-action for greater agency and intention around the development and deployment of digital technologies.
Instead of viewing technology as something that is happening to us, it puts greater onus on us, as individuals and members of society, to think more carefully and holistically about unintended consequences, negative externalities, and downstream impacts of our technological creations.
The people involved in the Responsible Tech field come from a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives. It is filled with technologists, sociologists, philosophers, professors, attorneys, artists, designers, advocates, psychologists, and more. This diversity is an asset. The complex issues surrounding tech call for contributions from multiple perspectives.
The Responsible Tech Ecosystem
Our Mission
We believe in growing and diversifying the Responsible Tech community by creating pathways and developing opportunities for individuals from various cultural, academic, and professional backgrounds to get involved in the field.
We envision a world in which diverse and global voices are equipped and empowered to influence responsible development of technologies that impact their own lives and society at large.
Our Values
Connecting any dialogue about the design and deployment of new technologies with the impact on people, communities, and society
Fostering a proactive and solution-focused approach to understanding and addressing any Responsible Tech issues
Championing inclusivity – race, ethnicity, age, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, disability, experience, background, expertise, and intersectionality
Celebrating unique and interdisciplinary professions that extend the boundaries of the Responsible Technology field
Affecting change through different levers of power – education, policy, and participation. Elevating the work of organizations and institutions globally who are committed to the notion of Responsible Technology
01 The future of technology is intertwined with the future of democracy and the human condition. When we talk about “tech,” we are really speaking about something much larger. Tech alters the way we get our news, interact with others, and see the world around us. By extension, that affects the overall human condition and the future of democracy. Therefore, it behooves us to think of the “tech conversation” as a discussion over our values and the future we would like to live in. That means that the conversation shouldn’t be limited to everyone directly involved in the development of technology, but instead everyone who cares about its impact.
02 In order to align our tech future with the public interest, we need to involve the public. We need a heavily participatory structure that can incorporate the understandings and values of a wide variety of backgrounds and perspectives. Too often, people without input are affected by the design, development, and deployment of technology that leaves us feeling left out of the process.
03 We need collective action, not just individual thought leadership. There needs to be a great focus on co-creation, which by its very nature entails moving away from a top-down form of communication where ideas are disseminated from a few select thought leaders. People aren’t looking for ideas to parrot, they are desiring to be part of a connected body of knowledge and understanding.
04 No application without representation—not about us without us. Decisions that affect billions are made by a small sliver of society. The very name of our organization, All Tech is Human emphasizes the importance of human agency in a landscape traditionally dominated by market-first values. The future is not predetermined by machines. It is constantly created by humans.
05 Combining multiple stakeholders, disciplines, and perspectives requires an agnostic space for understanding and knowledge-sharing. In order to tackle wicked tech and society issues and co-create a tech future aligned with the public interest, we need all stakeholders involved. This typically does not happen because of siloed conversations and also because there is a significant amount of distrust between stakeholders. All Tech is Human is intentionally designed to unite individuals and organizations with competing values and philosophies to highlight our shared desire for a better tech future.
06 People often struggle to “find the others” and discover the wide variety of people and orgs committed to co-creating a better tech future. In order to accelerate tech consideration and co-create a better tech future, we need to have ways to easily find other people, organizations, and research so that we can learn, share, and collaborate. We are committed to enhancing discoverability and democratizing information in the Responsible Tech ecosystem.
Our Ten Principles
All Tech is Human is committed to strengthening the Responsible Tech ecosystem.
07 “Technology” is not just for technologists; we need all disciplines involved. Technology requires a holistic and cooperative environment to gain a deeper understanding of its full landscape. Rather than solely rely on technologists and technical individuals, we need people who can solve technical problems in a human way; without the humanities in technology, technology’s potential can never fully be realized.
08 Top-down models have power but often lack a diversity of ideas; grassroots models have ideas but often lack power. We unite these models. Our organization employs a unique “grassroots-power model” that rapidly circulates power and ideas across an interconnected multidisciplinary and multi-stakeholder network. In other words, All Tech Is Human has grassroots understanding while also being connected to traditional levers of power.
09 Tech innovation moves fast, while our ability to consider its impact often moves slow. We need to reduce the gulf between these. All Tech Is Human is designed to “move at the speed of tech,” which massively lowers the gulf between how fast innovation moves and how slow consideration typically moves. The inability for traditional sources of influence (political bodies, universities, legacy organizations) to move quickly had led to our current situation of reacting to the effects of technology, as opposed to proactively understanding its likely impacts and developing necessary rules and regulations.
10 There is a growing awareness and understanding of the root causes of our current dilemma, but limited action toward understanding values, trade-offs, and best paths forward. All Tech is Human has been committed to building the next stage for almost five years. We know that there is a “tech problem” and we understand many of the root causes. So now what? The hard part is uniting stakeholders, disciplines, and perspectives in order to understand values, trade-offs, and the best path forward. That's the next stage - and why need your input to help us co-create a better tech future.
Ten Principles Updated January 2023