Digital Humanism

March 9, 2025

Elisabeth Slapio

The challenge of a new image of technological leadership – lessons learned from the connection between technology and humanity

At a time when digitalisation has permeated almost all areas of our lives, the term “digital humanism” is becoming increasingly important. Digital humanism is understood as an attempt to harmonise technology and humanity. This is to be achieved by focussing on the ethical, social and cultural dimensions of technological innovation. This article explores the origins, principles, challenges and opportunities of digital humanism and discusses how to shape a technologically advanced yet human-centred future.

From its inception, the GTWN (Global Telecom Women’s Network) set itself the goal of addressing not only the economic and technical, but also the social and political implications of developments in IT and telecommunications. Digitalisation encompasses more than the purely technical implementation of innovative ideas and the development of products. It also relates to the design of processes and the cooperation of all people.

Origin and definition of digital humanism

Digital Humanism is a relatively new term that has developed at the interface of technology, philosophy and society. The movement arose from the realisation that technological innovations are oftendevelopedwithoutsufficientconsiderationof their impact on humanity. Its origins can be found in the age of enlightenment, when humanism was established as the guiding principle of social development.

Digital humanism transfers these principles into the 21st century and argues in favour of understanding technology as a tool that should be at the service of people. The central question is: How can we ensure that the development and use of technology respects human values such as dignity, freedom and justice?

Victoria Hernandez had already comprehensively outlined the fundamental aspects of digital humanism in her thought piece in The Mobile Century, Edition 2023/2024.1

Digital Humanism today

How can the current development of Digital Humanism be outlined in terms of its impact today? Since Tim Berners-Lee, the founder of the World Wide Web said “The system is failing”, we have increasingly been asking how, despite the speed and ever-increasing pressure of technological development, we can prevent manipulation and thus preserve the freedom of all people in line with the Vienna Manifesto of 2019.2

It is not easy to answer the question of how digital humanism affects our daily lives and how we deal with it. Modern digital humanism must make the complex interaction between technology and people transparent. It must analyse and enable people to monitor existing and further developments with the aim of fully respecting a better life, freedom and universal human rights.

For several years, the question of how people deal with the effects of technological change has been seen as the greatest challenge of the future. At least since the global internet, the question has been discussed, sometimes controversially, as to whether it is not technology alone which plays the decisive role. It is people’s abilities that determine how our technology will develop.

The first behavioural changes in people became apparent in the way the company works. It seemed as if people had lost some of their original capability. The joy of innovation and curiosity seemed to be waning. While the pace of life was accelerating in many areas, interest and patience in dealing with complexity seemed to be diminishing. Convenienceinsteadofeffort,assumptionsinstead of facts, one-sided arguments instead of synopses and a lack of discourse skills are gradually dominating our behaviour. This obviously carries a massive risk of qualitative regression.

Especially today, the future of digitally developing industries depends on people facing up to the
unknown and finding the courage and strength to shape new perspectives not only technically, but also by observing other intellectual contexts. Only then will the economy and civil society have a chance to attain global peace and fair, appropriate prosperity. These general insights have since become much clearer.

Principles of Digital Humanism

The core elements of digital humanism can be summarised in several principles:

  1. Human-centred technology: Technological innovations should focus on the well-being of people. Instead of exclusively following economic interests, technologies should be designed in such a way that they promote social progress and individual quality of life.
  2. Transparency and responsibility: Developers and companies that create technologies must be responsible for the social and ethical impact of their products. Transparent decision- making processes and clear accountability are essential.
  3. Inclusion: Technology must be designed inclusively and include all people, regardless of gender, age, social status or origin. Digital divides must be overcome in order to offer everyone access to the benefits of digitalisation.
  4. Sustainability: Technological developments should be environmentally friendly and sustainable. Digital humanism demands that innovations are designed for the long term and conserve the planet’s resources.
  5. Ethical reflection: Every technological innovation should be accompanied by ethical reflection that critically scrutinises the potential risks and consequences.

Challenges of Digital Humanism

Although the principles of digital humanism are clear and desirable, there are numerous challenges to their implementation:

  1. Commercial interests: The digital economy is often dominated by large technology companies whose primary goal is to maximise profit. These interests are often at odds with humanist ideals.
  2. Cultural differences: The interpretation of values such as freedom, privacy and justice can vary culturally, making it difficult to develop universal principles.
  3. Regulation: Legislation often lags behind technological development. Effective and timely regulations that enforce ethical standards are difficult to implement.
  4. Technological complexity: Many technologies, especially AI and machine learning, are so complex that it is difficult to fully understand how they work and their impact. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to take responsibility and build trust.
  5. Potential for misuse: Technologies can be misused for harmful purposes, such as surveillance, manipulation or cybercriminal activities.

Opportunities of Digital Humanism

Despite the challenges, digital humanism offers immense opportunities to bring about positive change in society:

  1. Democratisation of knowledge: Digitalisation has revolutionised access to information. Digital humanism can help to spread education and knowledge worldwide and create the basis for informed decisions.
  2. Ethical AI: By implementing humanistic values in the development of artificial intelligence (AI), we can ensure that these technologies support and do not endanger humanity.
  3. Social innovation: Technology can be used to solve social problems, for example through digital health applications, platforms for civic engagement or tools to combat climate change.
  4. New working models: Digital humanism can help to make working environments more people-friendly by promoting flexible working models, further training and fair conditions.
  5. Global cooperation: Digitalisation facilitates global networking and cooperation. Through a humanistic approach, this networking can be used to tackle global challenges such as poverty, inequality and environmental problems.

Lessons learned from the connection between technology and humanity

The ongoing debate about “digital humanism” will continue to expand in the coming years. But how can we actively incorporate our personal skills?

  1. Promote comprehensive education and a democratic discourse.

The idea that people are responsible for their actions and thoughts, and that technology can be designed in such a way that it supports human values should not only be discussed in closed groups.

In addition to the technical and scientific debate, the question of how this debate can be integrated
into society, politics and the economy in a way that is “suitable for everyday life” needs to be addressed in greater depth.

The extent to which this topic is discussed depends very much on the level of education, the personal and economic situation of each individual, the possibility of obtaining neutral information and, ultimately, on a democratic climate in society as a whole.

2. Communicate the necessary coexistence of social and technological development

The hype of technological progress has reached people of almost all ages. It seems to overshadow other pressing issues, such as the threat to the environment, the autocratic development of power and the gap between social classes.

One of the first effects is that the ubiquity of technological progress seems to be displacing a deeper interest in art and culture, philosophy and the humanities, religion and politics.

3. Think of economy and ecology as a common goal

The financing of economic prosperity through modern technology must not become a competition in which the knowledge of culture and the humanities is neglected.

Both topics explain to us what the individual human being and society are and what significance they have.

Sharing in this knowledge creates a basis for recognising the dangers to our environment and enables social discourse about the dark side of the manipulative potential of modern technology.

Those who ignore the necessary educational opportunities for all sections of society are accepting that the dialogue about digital humanism will not reach a large part of society.

4. Promote a common approach for a common future

A collaboration with the GTWN offers the opportunity to have a transparent discussion about digital humanism and to develop a framework for a general understanding of ‘suitability for everyday use’.

It must be possible to derive a comprehensible description from the complex discussion of digital humanism. This description must include the opportunities and risks of technological developments. And it must develop into a powerful demand to enable society to participate in the process of shaping the future and to ensure transparency.

It must be possible to derive a comprehensible description from the complex discussion of digital humanism. This description must include the opportunities and risks of technological developments. And it must develop into a powerful demand to enable society to participate in the process of shaping the future and to ensure transparency.

At the same time, it must develop a compatibility that enables democratic understanding in different social, political and economic structures.

In order to harmonise technology and humanity, a clear language and a willingness to deal with a multitude of different developments are required. Developing the idea of digital humanism means dedicating a great deal of professional commitment and empathy to seemingly neutral technological developments. This is how both opportunities and riskscanbeidentified.Inthefuture,itwillnotbe about technology or humanity. Both will have to encompass changing ethical and moral values.

  1. https://themobilecentury.com/digital- humanism-harmonizing-humanity-and-technology/ ↩︎
  2. https://caiml.org/dighum/dighum-manifesto/ ↩︎


ELISABETH SLAPIO

Elisabeth Slapio was managing director of the Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry until her retirement. There she headed the Innovation and Environment department. Her responsibilities included the topics of innovation and technology, research and science, energy and environmental economics. She was committed to the digitalisation of administration, particularly in matters of electronic government action.

She currently supports various initiatives and projects to promote education and social integration on a voluntary basis and provides support on economic issues in the pre-founding phases of young companies.