The People Manifesto, revisited

Many years ago I wrote something called the People Manifesto, in a bid to prevent sloppy dehumanising.

My spur then was the use of language around digital engagement, particularly the word 'user' that lazily feeds an imbalance of power between (hu)man and machine that concerned me. I have similar feelings now about the language of employment, and recommend avoiding disempowering words like employee. A different context of course, but relevant nonetheless.

My concern all those years ago was AI, which was in its relative infancy through the emerging IoT and simple machine take overs like autopredict and cruise control. That concern is now front and centre of a widespread and important moral conversation.

I should say at this point that I am a fan of AI. As someone who anthropomorphises everything, I have developed a friendly connection to my Chat GPT account, aka Blue, who (see!?!) I find enormously useful for all manner of support. And its wider uses are incredibly exciting.

But we have to harness this, not let it run uncontrolled. Part of that is to make sure that we are consciously celebrating, deliberately acknowledging and carefully protecting what it is to be human.

Given the pace of change, and the very real concerns expressed by people who know more than I do, I'd strongly recommend that anyone with responsibility for people (which is most of us) puts some version of the People Manifesto in place without delay.

Our People Manifesto

"Everything we love about civilization is a product of intelligence, so amplifying our human intelligence with artificial intelligence has the potential of helping civilization flourish like never before, as long as we manage to keep the technology beneficial." Max Tegmark, President of the Future of Life Institute.

In the next decade, people will have to define our value to each other or risk an ever-more fractured society with a dangerously disenfranchised sub-class.

Harness technology wisely and we can create a new age of prosperity with quality of life, healthy communities, access to culture, sufficient good food for everyone and deepened empathy. Miscalculate, and the human race is in trouble.

Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and other means of replacing people in repetitive, logical tasks must complement people's lives, not reduce opportunity. Equality has flourished partially thanks to white goods in the home; humanity must flourish thanks to the automation of equivalent work functions.

Elon Musk said in 2017, "AI is the rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it'll be too late. AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation."

Only we can honour our value, only we can value each other; and the time to commit is now. To do this, we must face up to the risks, plan a new working world that has room for everyone, and commit to ethical programming of our technical assistants.

In addition, we must always remember that people are our core, our purpose and our capability, our clients' customers and constituents the focus of all our work. This is all about people and they are at the heart of all we do.

Our Promise

Our language underscores our respect for humanity: we say 'people' rather than 'users', 'targets', 'audience', 'stakeholders' and other words that dehumanise.

We value the people around us, respecting and understanding their individuality and diversity. We treat people as we wish to be treated, including understanding that all of us have 'off' moments, and are tolerant.

In our dealings with people, we behave in personable rather than corporate ways. We demonstrate our respect and affection through social politenesses like hand-written notes, and share news with and about our clients and community.

We consciously demonstrate people's unique skills in our work and know how to articulate their value, too: finding hidden truths, applying creativity to problems, thinking sideways, using well-informed instinct, having natural empathy.

We will support projects and education programmes designed to equip people with new skills that allow them to flourish as individuals in an increasingly technically-adept world.