Technologists Anonymous
A 12 Step Program for Reclaiming Our Humanity
My name is Jon, and I am a technologist. I have been using technology for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I played video games and learned to program BASIC on an Atari 400 with a plastic keyboard. When my grandmother bought us a color TV, I learned that Tron was blue. But to keep getting the same thrill, I had to keep using even more tech. Intoxicated by a revolution in information, I immersed myself in computing in college, and then I wrote software in the Navy. I even took technology with me when I tried to get away from it—with my fancy tents, stoves, climbing gear, and GPS receivers.
But I realized that tech had started to feel empty. I felt like I was caught in an endless cycle—Prodigy, Altavista, Napster, Facebook, iPhone, Fitbit, Zoom, ChatGPT. National security experts kept pushing the same things with different words—the electronic battlefield, revolution in military affairs, network-centric warfare, effects-based operations, multidomain campaigning, synthetic cybernetic hypersonic quantum AI centaur enabled hybrid cognitive warfare in cislunar space. But every war was a bureaucratic shitshow of malfunctioning systems, endless fog and friction, political mismanagement, and civilian death.
I knew I had to make a change. I started to read history and philosophy. I visited art museums and took long walks on the beach. I sought out mentors and friends who could help me to find a better way. I realized that technology is not destiny. I realized that technology is not even technology, but rather technis, a system of interdependent structures and practices driven by the pursuit of efficiency and competitive advantage. I began to see how contingent political and economic choices have shaped and reshaped the sociotechnical infrastructure of capitalism and imperialism. And I saw that AI is neither autonomous nor intelligent, but rather a cultural system of prediction and extraction that has become a planetary-scale commodity fetish.
I’m not saying I’ve left it all behind. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about technology. But every day I get to make a choice about how and whether to use it or abuse it. Every day I can affirm that I am a biologically embodied, ecologically embedded, culturally extended, dynamically enactive human agent, not just a pattern of bits that can be replaced by a machine. Every day I can choose whether to connect with other human beings to share their joys and suffering, not just mindlessly reproduce the mythology of technology.
I know that there are many other people struggling with technology. Maybe you are struggling with technology as we speak. If so, maybe my story will help you to see that you are not alone. If the spirit moves you, please consider sharing your story, too. There’s no pressure. When you’re ready to break from the tech bros, I’m here to witness your journey. Together, we can take these twelve steps toward reclaiming our humanity:
1. We affirm that are powerless to resist the allure of tech, and our lives have become unmanageable
2. We believe that something other than tech can restore us to sanity
3. We decide to seek HALP—history, art, literature, philosophy—to appreciate the nature of humanity
4. We fearlessly study the political and economic character of infrastructure
5. We articulate the historical choices that have shaped the human-built world
6. We understand that different values and choices can rebuild a different world
7. We humbly strive to make better choices and live up to our values
8. We reveal the hidden violence and injustices that sustain our technocracy
9. We support policy to limit the exploitation of people and the planet, except when doing so would inflict more harm
10. We continue to assess new technologies and when they are harmful admit it
11. We seek through connection and reflection to improve our understanding of the human condition
12. Having had a humanist awakening through these steps, we carry this message to technologists everywhere
(This is Mai Mai, off the leash)
I am incapable of understanding what a human is without tools and recorded/written language (another tool). I guess I need HALP but since ever since my early education in art and art history made it clear that technologies and art are reciprocal influences on each other and have been throughout history, it got me deeper and deeper into technology. My heroes were the Renaissance artists who invented perspective and combined painting with architecture.
Hi Jon - I am a recovering technology addict as well. I started on an Atari 800 with 16kb of memory, and to my great shame - I still have that same computer in a trunk, like a technological albatross that has me tied to the mast (to mix...metaphors?).
I too find that technology eventually becomes an endless treadmill of new capabilities, new abilities and the next big thing. (Claude Code anyone?). I also struggle with aging, and the overwhelming truth that many of my brain cells are stuffed full with song lyrics from the 1970’s (Chevy Van by Sammy Johns for one).
My greatest joy comes from putting the phone down, taking the air pods out and getting out in the world. Thank you for having the courage to step forward. The first step is the hardest!