Juha Saarinen: Can tech handle humanity?

Apple chief executive Tim Cook. Photo / Getty Images

Tech companies like to think they inhabit an alternative universe in which they set the rules, while earning money hand over fist from the world you and I live in.

They get away with it because technology is inwards-facing, complex and difficult to understand for decision makers and the general public. There is a limit to how many toes can be trampled on before the howling start though, as the giant public relations car crash that is Uber has found.

Since he pressed the start button, Uber founder and chief executive Travis Kalanick made it his company's business to ignore government transportation and labour regulations. The ride-sharing company got into legal hot water worldwide for that, deservedly so.

Flouting regulations is not what might see Kalanick ousted from Uber though. Instead, a blog post by a female engineer outlining gender discrimination and sexism at Uber could now unravel not just Kalanick's future at the company, but also force it to stop being such a "tech bro" employer.

The senior veep who infamously suggested Uber should spy and dig up dirt on journalists and critics has already been unseated, along with 20 staffers, as part of a company-wide investigation into employment practices.

What if Uber become the giant it is because of its nasty corporate culture though?

Investors who have poured billions into Uber must be wondering if the company can continue its hyper growth without Kalanick's aggressive leadership style.

If not, Uber's massive US$70 billion ($98 billion) market capitalisation will be pranged and that's perhaps something we should all feel nervous about.

If you've visited Silicon Valley for the past two decades, you'll note that the area isn't some sort of perfectly run Utopia where people are happy and lead an existence free of discrimination and oppression.

It's quite the opposite in fact, a rather depressing place with heaps of homeless people, massive social disparities and insane commuter volumes caused in part by poor service industry employees who can't afford to live in the same expensive neighbourhood as their rich geek customers.

When an industry has to sit down and figure out how to be more humane and respect people, it's hard to come to any other conclusion that there's something fundamentally wrong with it. And that's exactly what the tech biz is being forced to do currently.

That tech has a problem shouldn't come as a surprise though: that screen in front of you and the network that conveys vast amounts of information back and forth at the speed of light abstract users from humanity. It would be amazing if this wasn't reflected in the corporate culture of tech companies.

Add to that the enormous power that controlling huge amounts of information gives, and yes, technology can and will be used to mistreat people.

Open source firebrand Richard Stallman has applied that general observation on technology to Uber, and it's both an amusing and thought-provoking read.

Don't take my word for it though. A strong signal that technology companies need to learn humanity comes from Apple chief executive Tim Cook.

Cook spoke to graduates at the private MIT university in the United States, on trendy tech topics like artificial intelligence.

"I'm not worried about artificial intelligence giving computers the ability to think like humans. I'm more concerned about people thinking like computers without values or compassion, without concern for consequences," Cook said.

You and I might wonder why that and other things Cook said about technology needed to be spelt out in 2017. They do though, and Cook could also have strengthened his position considerably by booting Uber from the Apple App Store but that was one step too far, clearly.

While it's good to see Cook remind future geeks that they're people first and foremost, it'll be interesting to see what an infusion of humanity does to the tech industry, provided it catches on. Will it survive and thrive, or fail to adapt and take a nosedive?