What We Do
How Change Happens
CHT’s theory of change focuses on a simple yet powerful feedback loop.
Creating Clarity
We demystify the incentives at play in the tech ecosystem in order to drive new levels of awareness and agency. Areas where we create clarity include the incentives in modern tech design, the psychological, emotional, and societal impact of poor design choices, business models at tech companies, visions of more humane technology, and more.
Transforming Incentives
After achieving clarity, we identify and implement targeted interventions to produce systems-level change. Our interventions include policy work, precedent-setting litigation, large-scale public awareness campaigns, and more — all of which shift the incentives in the tech ecosystem in powerful ways.
This feedback loop — creating clarity, transforming incentives — can be applied at all levels of society, from our individual psyches, to our legal systems, cultural institutions, and beyond. It also represents CHT’s core synergy, where our public awareness work creates clarity, and our policy work transforms incentives.
Why We’re Trusted
Founded by technologists, CHT’s work is rooted in a deep understanding of the nature of tech design. We aren’t outsiders criticizing the tech industry; we’re insiders working toward meaningful change.
As a strictly nonpartisan organization, CHT is able to work across the political spectrum in order to advocate for technology that serves the public interest.
CHT continues to maintain high-level access to key decision-makers in policy, media, and tech spaces — we are one of the first voices these stakeholders turn to for clarity and cutting-edge insights into new tech.
CHT’s vision focuses on immediate tech harms, along with dangers that may emerge in the near and long term.
CHT remains nimble and highly responsive in today’s rapidly changing tech landscape. We sound the alarm on new tech dangers as soon as they begin to surface in society, and provide nuanced forecasting for potential future harms.
Trusted Approach, Tangible Results
Through our podcast, “Your Undivided Attention,” we’re clarifying the key drivers in misaligned AI and harmful social media design. “YUA” has achieved over 27.5 million downloads so far, and is considered a must-listen in tech and policy spaces. “YUA” has catalyzed international policy initiatives, spurred more ethical tech development practices, and sparked cross-sector collaborations to mitigate AI and social media harms.
Through our policy work, we’re transforming the incentives in today’s social media and AI design with cutting-edge legislative frameworks and high-impact litigation.
Through our technical expertise, we’re demonstrating current risks with today’s technology in visceral ways and providing design alternatives for AI products that produce different outcomes.
We are moving the needle in the right direction
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Trained in Ethical Tech Design
Our policy work
Social media fractured how we communicate; AI now influences decisions that shape our well-being.
We don’t need to slow innovation — we need to raise its standards — just as we’ve done in medicine, aviation, and other fields that put public trust and safety first.
Bringing clarity to the public
Technology is a near-constant presence in our lives, influencing our culture, our relationships, and our psychologies. But the public often struggles to decipher the negative impact of technology as it’s unfolding — or envision better paths forward with tech design. Center for Humane Technology demystifies our current challenges with tech by creating clarity around the key drivers in the tech ecosystem. We allow society to discover its agency, from the individual level up to the institutional.
