A Utopian Model of Human-Technology Interaction

Everywhere we look, we see a world in a state of flux. Global systemic problems including the climate crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the death, destruction, migration, and misery emerging from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are all highly salient. These are coupled with ongoing disruptions and flux in the field of technology, including the rise of AI and robotics.

Social media systems proliferate and continuously reveal how people are questioning the future of world systems. Views range from dystopian to utopian. While sustainable well-being, peace, and prosperity are aspirations for most people, the utopian imagination struggles to survive.

Indeed, the idea that technological innovation can support sustainable well-being of Homo sapiens is central in the history of utopian thinking (Segal, 2005), and this idea continues to be influential (Danaher, 2019). Even in the minds of non-utopian futurists, technological advancement is frequently seen as inevitable (Verbeek, 2005; Dorrestijn and Verbeek, 2013).

A critical question when it comes to future technology design is, what should we design? Engaging stakeholders in utopian design thinking is valuable—it can foster an intention to participate in collective action; it can bring hope and a reduction in the tendency to simply justify the status quo (Badaan et al., 2020). While utopian system design thinking is an important catalyst in the broader democratization of community concerns and governance (Daniels et al., 2018), with implications across private and public sector design work (Broome, 1995; Hogan et al. 2015, Daniels et al., 2018), supporting collective intelligence and design thinking is challenging.

Collective Intelligence and Human-Technology Interaction (HTI) Design

In a recently published paper, we used collective intelligence (CI) methods to engage three groups of youth stakeholders in a project focused on utopian HTI design. The goal of the CI work was to facilitate systems thinking in relation to HTI design affordances that, together, are likely to promote peace, prosperity, and happiness in the future.

In the first phase of CI work, youth stakeholders generated a total of 227 ideas (i.e., HTI affordances). A category analysis of these ideas highlighted 12 core HTI affordances, which were carried forward into systems thinking sessions. A meta-analysis of systems models was then used to develop a roadmap of design priorities youth stakeholders argued to enhance the sustainable well-being of Homo sapiens (see Figure 1).

A roadmap for design

At level 1 in the roadmap, stakeholders highlighted HTI affordances focused on conflict prevention and mitigation to be the most influential in the full set of affordances. In particular, peace supported by technological interventions was seen as a highly influential cornerstone of other social, economic, and cultural HTI affordances.

At level 2, HTI design focused on economic egalitarianism and human augmentation technologies, and the technological enhancement of medicine and physical health were seen as highly influential in the overall system of affordances. Youth stakeholders viewed healthy living as integral to well-being. However, massive wealth gaps and income disparity were argued as antithetical to utopian progress, and HTI affordances supporting a more equitable economic system were seen as critical.

Level 3 focused on HTI affordances supporting enhanced collaboration in society, and HTIs that reduce waste and consumption, thus reducing negative effects on "producer" communities who feel the environmental effects of wasteful consumption most strongly. Collaborative supports were seen as particularly influential in shifting the digital sphere to a more positive and enriching environment, which related in turn to Level 4 HTIs focused on support systems for individual and social well-being.

Level 5 includes HTIs supporting the protection of the environment, which youth stakeholders believe can be supported by increased social awareness of climate issues resulting from HTIs that enhance education and provide more economic opportunity, as well as a shift of resources from conflict and defense to global green development.

Level 6 focused on material egalitarianism, in particular, on HTIs supporting the equitable distribution of resources around the world. HTIs supporting the redistribution of material resources, addressing subversions of sovereign resources, and the disparity in production versus compensation would be necessary in an ideal future.

Finally, Level 7 focused on collaborative frontiers, in particular, HTIs supporting global cooperation and a global society.

Overall, the systems thinking of youth stakeholders is fascinating. Importantly, youth stakeholders consistently argued for the technological facilitation of peacebuilding, peacekeeping, and defense, which provided a foundation for other HTI affordances.

Stakeholder-engaged CI specification of user and system needs has been very important and valuable in a variety of projects we have worked on, for example, focused on the design of learning tools for health care professionals (Hanlon et al., 2020), open data portals for citizens (Hogan et al., 2017), and services for the design of pedagogically-valuable e-books for children (Thompson et al., 2017).

More generally, as noted by Brossard (2019), cultivating social imagination and investing in cultural and social capital is important for initiating real-world implementations of utopian design. By combining the perspectives and creativity of youth stakeholders with the experience and expertise of designers and researchers, future utopian designers and innovators can advance the use of CI design methodologies to shape system designs. Indeed, deeper systems thinking focused on well-being may help to avoid what Segal (2017) describes as "techno-fixes"—short-term technological interventions which address symptoms of underlying causes, but do little to create noticeable improvements in society. We need to embrace collective intelligence and utopian system design thinking going forward—the new generation is ready.

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