That promote the reduction of the asymmetries that people suffer from being born in one place or another, with one or another abilities.

In recent years, suspicion of the destructive potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has once again awakened fears about the possible apocalyptic reach of a world dominated by technology. From the resignations of several technology gurus due to fears of uncontrolled AI to calls for regulation from the sector's leading companies themselves, AI has set off all the alarms. Of course, these positions have been followed by the usual hordes of techno-crazy intellectuals who firmly believe that technology will be the way to salvation (possibly from the problems it generates), or by apocalyptic thinkers, in this case led by Yuval Noah Harari, highlighting the proximity of the end of the world.

However, this discussion hides a much broader debate that is left out in the media spectacle generated by products like ChatGTP or Bard: what type of technology we want as a society and what interests it serves.

The first step to generate social and technological innovation that puts people at the center is to identify, and neutralize, what Professor Eduard Aibar calls the “ideology of innovation.” A vision that restricts the innovative process to a certain type of technologies, commonly called disruptive, designed to scale quickly and massively, and that seeks to generate short-term economic benefits. This vision distances us from all those innovations that seek social transformations and that focus on improving people's quality of life and restricts, above all, the ability to undertake incremental innovations that can arise from more collective processes.

Technology is neither aseptic nor neutral: it distributes costs and benefits depending on its conception, design and implementation

To do this, it is necessary to understand, first of all, that technology is neither aseptic nor neutral: it distributes costs and benefits depending on its conception, design and implementation. Historically, it has proven to be a determining factor in the generation of inequalities. From the agrarian revolution – which was followed by a process of land dispossession and which ended up relying on slave labor to “scale” production –, through the industrial revolutions that generated an urban environment of misery for the majority of the population, to the closest example with the platformization of the economy - a model that seeks the elimination of competition by concentrating all the transactions of a market to impose a monopoly that allows it to milk the cow (us) until there is not even one left. drop-.

Historically, these processes have been followed by periods of social contestation that managed to redistribute benefits, generating “more inclusive progress.” In the words of economist Daron Acemoglu in his new book Power and Progress, “most of the planet lives better today than our ancestors, not because of technology, but because good citizens and workers organized, challenged the choices made by elites, and “They forced the benefits to be shared more equally.”

Every day a new device is invented to satisfy the most bizarre of our desires and, on the other hand, we are not capable of looking for solutions (technological or not) to the most crucial problems of humanity.

Second, we must demystify the idea that technology is the sole driver of progress, if there is a unified concept of it. Technology and society are co-constructed (citing Professor Aibar himself). It is the social context itself that conditions the type of technology that we design and implement based on multiple factors such as power relations, market dynamics and other cultural aspects.

If you don't believe it, look around you: we live in a world in which we have stopped wondering why every day a new device is invented to satisfy the most bizarre of our desires and, on the other hand, we are not able to look for solutions. (technological or not) to the most crucial problems of humanity. Our market society has created the perfect conditions so that building a drone capable of murdering a person from 10,000 kilometers away is a reality today and, on the other hand, seeking vaccines for diseases that kill tens of thousands of people is a utopia.

This is the possibility for society as a whole to act to determine the technology we want and create the conditions for it to happen. And this imposes a moral obligation on us: we have the obligation, as a society, to develop technology that challenges the status quo, that alters the balance of power and promotes the reduction of the asymmetries that people suffer from the mere fact of being born in one. or another place, with one capacity or another. A technology, in short, to promote life.

The first is a firm institutional commitment to promoting technology that generates positive impacts and dynamics in our society. At a time when public funds have once again taken on a central value in driving the economy, they must encourage, leverage and promote the generation of technology that solves the problems we face as a society. The return of active industrial policies is an opportunity to open technological gaps in sectors that, in addition to generating economic development, seek a social impact. Green industry, renewable energy or investment in technology for health or care may be some of the sectors that can gain traction thanks to the active participation of the State.

The social economy must stop being the self-conscious little brother that is only seen to cover up the patches of the system

The second is to promote a revolution in the social sector that allows it to take a central position in the design of a different economic and technological model. The social economy must stop being the self-conscious little brother that is only seen to cover up the patches in the system and take the lead in the design and promotion of a technological sector that challenges established structures. That puts the focus on people and is able to bring the purpose of technology to the center of the discussion. That they actively participate in the definition of how it should respond to the challenges of our society and that it makes visible how it assigns costs and benefits, how it generates and distributes power and how it affects a model of social justice that we pursue as a society.

And finally, we must create a regulatory framework that promotes the imposition of ethical obligations in technological development. Paraphrasing Hans Küng in his famous Manifesto for a Global Ethics, we have to “impose a primacy of politics over technology, and of ethics over politics.” Advances cannot be solely guided by technical or market criteria, especially those that involve profound transformations in how we manage and relate as a society. It is necessary to promote regulations that hold companies responsible for the ethical consequences of their developments and that guarantee that the effects of technologies are framed within minimum standards accepted as a society.

At a time when citizens increasingly demand the responsibility of internalizing and eliminating unwanted effects of markets, technology cannot become the Wild West of the economy. ChatGTP and AI are just the tip of the iceberg, the tech world is full of products and services whose ethical implications are, at best, dubious, and at worst, aberrant. It is in our hands to take control or be controlled.