An Introduction to Digital Humanism: Shaping Technology for People and Society

Technology doesn’t shape society on its own—people do. Digital Humanism is the idea that we, as individuals and societies, can and must actively shape the digital world from a humanistic perspective. Innovation should be strongly tied to democracy, human rights, and social welfare. Digital Humanism helps guide how we develop and use technology in ways that benefit everyone.

Digital tools—like algorithms, computer-controlled machines, AI, and online platforms—have great potential benefits for people and society. But digital technologies can also harm people in their freedom, in their rights, economically, and socially. Whether digital technologies promote fairness, democracy, and wellbeing—or instead deepen inequality and surveillance—depends on the technology choices we make.

Digital Humanism encourages us to ask:

• How can these tools serve society, culture, and the economy? How can we use digital tools to build on an expand societal progress beneficial for all?
• Where might digital technologies cause harm? How can such harms be avoided?
• Who is responsible for their impact? Who should decide on the design of digital technologies that affect us all?

Digital humanism is optimistic about digital technologies, but solid reflection is key. Just because something happens online doesn’t mean that we have to abandon our established ethical and legal standards or that we need new rules. Often, we can apply the same principles that guide us offline: human dignity, justice, privacy, and accountability. However, some phenomena — such as algorithmic content moderation or the extreme market power of large internet giants —raise new ethical questions that require thoughtful debate or regulation. But even here, European values and democratic principles should guide us, not just technical convenience or popularity.

Digital Humanism also calls for both clear principles and concrete actions:

Digital humanism rejects two extremes:

• People are not machines.
• Machines are not people.

In practice, it means:

• No ethically or legally relevant decisions by AI: AI Systems operate within pre-set parameters or learned statistical associations that AI can only apply, but which do not originate from itself. AI therefore does not have its own decision-making competence.
• Responsibility still lies with humans and not with machines: Even complex AI lacks the kind of reason, freedom and autonomy required for the attribution of responsibility. Digital Humanism therefore rejects concepts that regards machines as accountable actors that can be held responsible for their behavior. Machines are not people.
• Digital self-determination: Everyone should have control over if and how they engage with digital technology. This applies both at the level of individuals and societies.
• Democracy:
  • Neither tech nor internet companies nor the market nor technologies make the law, but the democratically legitimized institutions. The enforcement of these rules is to be ensured everywhere by democratically legitimized state authority.
  • E-participation (electronic participation), i.e. citizen participation in political decision-making processes through Internet-based procedures, is to be expressly welcomed as a further development of traditional citizen participation procedures from the perspective of Digital Humanism. However, the great potential of E-participation must not lead to a form of direct democracy that consists solely of the correct application of the majority rule and abandons essential features of modern liberal democracy, such as the separation of powers, human rights and expert hearings.
• Access and inclusion:
  • Universal access to the internet and education in digital skills for all.
  • The right to live without being forced online and the recognition of people in their diversity also in digital interactions.
• Transparency: People have the right to know whether they’re interacting with a human or a machine.

Digital Humanism offers a path to ensure that innovation in Europe strengthens human dignity, freedom, and democracy. It’s not about resisting progress—it’s about steering it in a direction that puts people first.