The Future Can't Leave People Behind 

Let's Bring Back Technology for the People

There was once a time when the internet felt like a promise.

Not a product. Not a marketplace. Not a surveillance machine. Not a battlefield of algorithms competing for attention. A promise.

In its early cultural imagination, the internet represented possibility. It was supposed to connect people across geography, class, language, and circumstance. It was supposed to democratize knowledge. It was supposed to make information easier to access, communities easier to build, voices easier to hear, and opportunity easier to distribute. For many people, the internet was not just a technological breakthrough, it was a social one. It suggested that humanity had created a tool powerful enough to help us become more informed, more connected, more creative, and perhaps even more compassionate.

That older vision of the internet was not perfect, and it was mostly not free from inequality, exclusion, or commercial interest. But it carried a certain optimism. People believed in the good that technology could do. They believed that if information could move freely, if people could communicate across borders, if knowledge could be shared at scale, then society might become better. The internet seemed to offer a new kind of public square, messy, imperfect, but alive with human possibility.

Somewhere along the way, that promise changed.

The internet became less like a commons and more like a shopping mall. Less like a public library and more like a casino. Less like a tool for collective uplift and more like an engine for monetization. The digital world, once imagined as a place made by and for people, became increasingly shaped by the priorities of capitalism: growth, scale, extraction, optimization, advertising, engagement, profit.

This shift did not happen overnight. It happened gradually, through platforms, business models, investment incentives, data collection, and the normalization of a simple but devastating idea: if something can be monetized, it should be. Human attention could be monetized. Human relationships could be monetized. Human insecurity could be monetized. Human creativity could be monetized. Human loneliness could be monetized. Even outrage could be monetized.

The result is the world we live in now, a world where extraordinary technological advancement coexists with extraordinary social frustration. We have more tools than ever, yet many people feel less supported. We have more platforms for expression than ever, yet many people feel unheard. We have more information than ever, yet many people feel confused, manipulated, and exhausted. We have more innovation than ever, yet large portions of society are struggling to meet basic needs.

That contradiction should trouble us. It should force us to ask whether we are using the right definition of progress.

Too often, progress is measured by what we can build rather than whom we help. A new device is treated as progress. A faster platform is treated as progress. A more powerful algorithm is treated as progress. A company reaching a higher valuation is treated as progress. A technology becoming more efficient, more scalable, or more profitable is treated as progress.

But utility is progress. Usefulness is progress. Human benefit is progress.

A tool might be impressive. A platform may be clever. An artificial intelligence system may be breathtaking in its technical sophistication. But if it does not meaningfully improve all human life, if it does not reduce suffering, expand opportunity, protect dignity, or support those most in need, then we should be careful about calling it progress. It may be advancement. It may be innovation. It may be profitable. But progress requires a moral dimension. Progress is not merely movement forward in technical capacity. Progress is movement toward a better society.

And by that measure, we should worry.

Technology is advancing so quickly, but more and more people are being disadvantaged. Economic inequality continues to shape access to housing, healthcare, education, safety, and opportunity. Social alienation is widespread. Political anger is intensifying. Protests, unrest, and public frustration are not random disruptions, they are signals. They are evidence that many people do not feel served by the systems governing their lives. They are evidence that large portions of the population believe leadership, whether political or economic, is not operating on their behalf.

This is one of the defining problems of our time. The people with the most power to shape society are often not incentivized to serve society.

Political leaders are frequently incentivized to win elections, satisfy donors, dominate news cycles, and preserve power. Economic leaders are incentivized to increase shareholder value, capture markets, reduce costs, automate labor, monetize users, and generate returns. These incentives do not always align with the common good. In fact, sometimes they conflict with it.

That conflict matters because systems produce what they are designed to reward. We get what we reward. If we reward attention capture, we will get addiction by design. If we reward profit above care, we will get profitable systems that neglect human beings. If we reward scale without responsibility, we will get massive technologies deployed faster than society can understand, regulate them, or equitably distribute across nations of all sizes.

This is especially urgent in the age of artificial intelligence.

AI is often discussed as inevitable, as though society has no choice but to accept whatever version of the future the most powerful technology companies decide to build. We are being told that AI will transform everything, like work, education, healthcare, law, art, communication, government, and daily life. Some of that is probably be true. AI will produce real benefits. It may help solve complex problems, improve access to services, assist workers, accelerate research, and expand human creativity.

But the question is not if AI can do powerful things. We know that, obviously. The question is, who is benefiting from this power?

If AI is developed primarily to reduce labor costs, concentrate wealth, increase surveillance, manipulate behavior, or replace human judgment in contexts where empathy and accountability are essential, then society may become more technologically advanced while becoming less humane. If AI systems are built by a narrow class of people, trained on biased histories, deployed by profit-driven corporations, and governed by weak public oversight, then the harms will not be evenly distributed. They will fall hardest on the people, and countries, who are already most vulnerable.

That is the pattern we should be afraid of. Not technology itself, but technology absorbed into unjust systems.

When society rushes forward with new tools while failing to protect single mothers, people experiencing homelessness, people with disabilities, the elderly, low-wage workers, children, caregivers, Least-Developed Nations, and other vulnerable populations, we reveal something about our priorities. We reveal that innovation has become more important than care. We reveal that speed has become more important than justice. We reveal that the future is being imagined without enough attention to the people most likely to be harmed by it.

What kind of society are we building if we cannot prioritize those who need support the most?

That question should be at the center of every conversation about technology. Not as an afterthought. Not as a public relations statement. Not as a diversity paragraph buried in a corporate report. At the center.

A society is not measured by how well it serves its most powerful members. The powerful usually find ways to be served. A society is measured by how it treats those with the least power, including the poor, the disabled, the elderly, the unhoused, the sick, the marginalized, the overworked, the underpaid, people from countries you've never visited, the people whose lives are often discussed in policy but ignored in practice.

If technological progress leaves those people behind, then it is not progress in the fullest sense. It is selective advancement. It is luxury futurism. It is the creation of tools that make life more convenient for some while making life more precarious for others.

We should be honest about the world such a path creates. It is not a great world. It is not even a stable one. A society that excludes or disregards large portions of its population eventually weakens itself. When people feel abandoned, they do not simply disappear. Their suffering becomes social tension. Their anger becomes political volatility. Their exclusion becomes a moral failure that eventually becomes a structural crisis.

Here's another concern that's been swirling in my head recently, intellectual stagnation.

A healthy society needs contradiction. It needs different experiences, different perspectives, different ways of understanding the world. Progress depends on ideas being challenged. If everyone left at the table thinks the same way, believes the same things, shares the same assumptions, and benefits from the same systems, then society does not become more intelligent. It becomes more fragile.

The most vulnerable populations often see truths that the powerful miss. People living at the edge of systems understand those systems differently. A person navigating disability understands access in a way an able-bodied designer may not. A single mother understands time, labor, childcare, and bureaucracy in ways that policymakers often fail to grasp. A person experiencing homelessness understands the failures of housing policy, mental healthcare, labor markets, and social services not as abstractions but as daily realities. Elderly people understand dependence, dignity, healthcare, loneliness, and social neglect in ways younger innovators may overlook.

If those perspectives are excluded from the design of the future, the future will be poorly designed.

This is why the obsession with sameness is so dangerous. When technology is built by narrow groups for narrow interests, it reflects narrow assumptions. It may become efficient, but not wise. It may become profitable, but not just. It may become seamless for the privileged and hostile to everyone else.

Without contradiction, we cannot move forward as a society. Without challenge, ideas become stale. Without difference, innovation becomes repetition disguised as novelty. A room full of people who agree with each other may move quickly, but speed is not wisdom. Sometimes disagreement is the very thing that prevents a society from making catastrophic mistakes.

This is where the current moment feels so unsettling on one side, and exciting on the other. For probably the first time in modern history, some people might look around and wonder whether humanity is moving backward even as technology moves forward. And another group of people see society moving into a utopian future that will solve everything.

That sounds paradoxical, but it's not.

A society can have advanced machines and declining empathy. It can have artificial intelligence and inadequate healthcare. It can have billion-dollar platforms and rising homelessness. It can have smart devices and social media, yet lonely people. It can have automation and exhausted workers. It can have endless content and little wisdom. It can have innovation conferences, product launches, and soaring valuations while ordinary people feel more anxious, less secure, and less hopeful about the future.

That part might not be progress.  

Some people confuse technological capability with social advancement. Technology can help produce progress, but it is not progress by itself. A tool has no moral value independent of how it is used, who controls it, who benefits from it, and who is harmed by it.

A hammer can build a shelter or destroy one. A network can connect communities or manipulate them. An algorithm can expand access or reinforce discrimination. AI can assist human flourishing or intensify inequality. The tool matters, but the system around the tool matters more.

So what would it mean to bring back technology for the people?

First, it would we need to change the questions we're asking. Instead of asking only “Can we build this?” we should ask “Should we build this?” Instead of asking “Can this scale?” we should ask “Who does this serve?” Instead of asking “How much value can this capture?” we should ask “How much suffering can this reduce?” Instead of asking “How can this increase engagement?” we should ask “How can this improve human life?”

Second, we need to challenge the assumption that market success equals social value. A product can make money while making society worse. A platform can dominate a market while damaging public discourse. A technology can be widely used because people are dependent on it, not because it is good for them. Profit is not proof of benefit. Growth is not proof of wisdom. Popularity is not proof of justice.

Third, we would need leadership with different incentives. If political and economic leaders are rewarded for serving capital more than people, then we should not be surprised when people are treated as secondary. Public policy, corporate governance, and social expectations all need to shift toward accountability, care, and long-term human outcomes. Leaders should be judged not only by what they build or how much wealth they generate, but by whether their decisions make society more livable, fair, and humane, not only be centralized institutions, but also by us, everyday people. We can do this by choosing where our dollars and attention go.

Fourth, vulnerable populations must be treated as central stakeholders in the future, not peripheral concerns. This means designing technology, policy, infrastructure, and public services with direct input from those most affected. It means asking how AI impacts disabled people, caregivers, the elderly, low-income families, workers, tenants, students, and people without stable housing. It means recognizing that those groups are not obstacles to innovation. They are necessary guides for building systems that actually work. One of the most memorable moments for me witnessing this early into my career, was when I saw UN NGO Representatives bring homeless people to the United Nations to explain their experiences before the representatives drafted advocacy arguments. Let's see more of this.

Fifth, let's bring back the idea of the internet as a public good. The internet does not have to be only an advertising machine or a shopping infrastructure. It can still be a place of education, mutual aid, creativity, civic participation, and community. But that requires intentional design. It requires spaces that are not entirely governed by engagement metrics. It requires protecting privacy, supporting independent creators, investing in digital literacy, and resisting the total commercialization of human interaction.

Finally, we need a more humane definition of progress.

Progress is not just faster. Progress is not just newer. Progress is not just more automated. Progress is not just more profitable. Progress is not a world where a handful of people build extraordinary tools while millions of others become more disposable.

Progress is a society where technology helps people live with more dignity. Progress is a society where single mothers have support, not judgment. Where disabled people have access, not barriers. Where elderly people have care, not abandonment. Where people experiencing homelessness have housing and careers, not marginalization. Where workers have security, not constant replacement. Where children inherit possibility, not collapse. Where disagreement is valued because it sharpens our collective thinking. Where the future is not something imposed by the powerful, but something shaped by all of us.

The younger generation is inheriting a difficult world. They are being handed powerful tools, but also fragile institutions, anxiety, economic instability, political polarization, and a digital environment designed to capture their attention from childhood. It is unfair to tell them that technology alone will save them. Technology will not save society if society does not decide to save itself.

That decision begins with values.

We must decide that people matter more than markets. That usefulness matters more than novelty. That care matters more than speed. That inclusion matters more than efficiency. That the future should be judged by how it treats the vulnerable, not by how impressed the powerful are with their own inventions.

This weekend someone told me I was naive to believe the old internet promise could make its way back in its original form. He said too much has changed. Maybe he's right. 

But the spirit of that promise, the belief that technology can serve human beings, expand knowledge, connect communities, and improve society, is still worth fighting for.

We do not have to accept a future where every human need becomes a business opportunity and every social space becomes a site of extraction. We do not have to accept a future where artificial intelligence advances while human compassion declines. We do not have to accept a future where the most vulnerable are treated as irrelevant to progress.

We can choose differently.

But choosing differently requires us to be clear. Technology is not the destination. Capital is not the destination. Efficiency is not the destination. The destination is human flourishing.

If a tool helps us get there, it is progress. If it does not, then no matter how advanced it appears, we should have the courage to question it.

Because a society that builds remarkable things while abandoning its people is not moving forward. It's just moving fast.

So, Here's A Challenge for my Builders

I challenge every builder, founder, policymaker, investor, and technologist to ask a harder question before moving forward. 

How does this benefit society?

And just as importantly, is the economic model equitable and fair to the most vulnerable people in society?

If every solution is designed only for people who already have money, access, stability, and power, then what happens to the people who do not? Are we intentionally choosing to leave them behind?

Because if innovation only serves those who can afford it, that's not progress. It is exclusion dressed up as advancement. True progress must be useful, accessible, and humane, especially for the people society too often forgets.

To the unhoused, people with disabilities, people living in countries with extreme poverty, caretakers, elderly, military spouses, people who are lonely, students, low-income families, and people on the fringes, we won't let you get left behind. 

Daphné