POSITIVE TECHNOLOGY PLEDGE

This Pledge is like a “Hippocratic Oath” for Technology.

AI, social platforms and data infrastructure are rewriting reality.

Faster than our culture, governance or wisdom can keep up.

We need a NORTH STAR.

SIGN THE PLEDGE

WHO WE ARE

We are a BRIDGE.

The Positive Technology Institute (PTI) is a new initiative that bridges Thinkers, Builders, and Funders to promote Positive Technology — digital innovations that advance human sovereignty, well-being, and abundance for all.

The PTI community recognizes the power of digital technologies to influence our societies and ourselves - and aims to take back the reins, channeling innovation towards a world that centers human agency, advances our individual and collective well-being, and fosters a thriving future for all.

This Pledge is a North Star.

So we can “find the others,” bridge across roles, unite around shared values, and take wise action — together.

This Pledge is for all of us - Thinkers, Builders, Funders, and Stakeholders.

If you design, train, ship, deploy, distribute, or operate technology you are a Builder. Builders develop the tools that shape our world.

Builders want to create ethically, but lack positive governance guidance and face pressure to dismiss harmful effects.

If you allocate capital, board influence, or institutional resources, you are a Funder. Funders influence what scales and what becomes inevitable.

Funders prefer their capital to be values aligned but are challenged to identify positive builders and assess technology risks.

If you shape narratives, norms, research, policy, standards, education, community organizing, ethics, or governance, you are a Thinker.

Thinkers are often siloed from real world feedback loops - builders, funders and each other - that help ensure our innovations align with our values.

If you are affected by technology’s outcomes, or represent communities affected by them, you are a STAKEHOLDER.
We are all, regardless of our other roles, Stakeholders.

This Pledge is a Bridge.

This Pledge is Pro-Innovation.

So we can build boldly, learn honestly, improve continuously — together.

This Pledge is for human flourishing.

So we ensure innovation expands our human capacity (not control, extraction and harm) — together.

This Pledge makes our values visible.

So we can find alignment, and act — together.

SIGN THE PLEDGE

POSITIVE TECHNOLOGY PLEDGE

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As signatories of this Pledge, we PROMOTE technologies, practices, and policies that enable human flourishing through sovereignty, well-being, and abundance for all.

    • Human agency, informed consent, and meaningful choice

    • Privacy and data dignity

    • The ability to understand, question, contest, override, and opt out

    • Freedom from coercion, manipulation, and surveillance

    • Individual and collective health (mental, physical, emotional, social and spiritual)

    • Trust, connection, and community resilience

    • Stewardship of living systems and the conditions for life

    • Net-positive outcomes over time, not just short-term optimization

    • Broad access to resources and opportunity

    • Durable value creation and social benefit

    • Innovation that raises the floor, not only the ceiling

    • Economic and social progress that does not externalize costs onto people, communities or the planet

    • Reduce agency through manipulation, coercion, addiction, deception, or dependency

    • Extract value through surveillance capitalism, dark patterns, or behavioral control

    • Concentrate power and upside while distributing risk, cost, and harm to the public

    • Erode dignity, trust, cohesion, and democratic accountability

    • Externalize physical, psychological, social, economic, or ecological harms

    • Hide tradeoffs or accountability behind opacity or hype

By signing this Positive Technology Pledge, I affirm that human flourishing through sovereignty, well-being, and abundance for all should be the guiding aim of data-driven and AI-enabled technology and its deployment. I commit to uphold and advance these principles in good faith, consistent with my roles and capacities.

Positive Technology is a living commitment.

We expect blind spots, evolving realities, and unintended consequences. To be successful, we need your participation, not just your endorsement. Let us know what is missing or overlooked. We will use your input to better understand our community needs, and to inform continuous improvements to the pledge.