Natural Humanists celebrate all human achievements, including all technological advancements, particularly if they improve international communication and the sharing of knowledge, or they liberate human beings from a life of unfulfilling capitalist enslavement, or they reduce our number of unnecessary possessions, or reduce environmental damage, or harm to human beings or other species, or if they allow human beings more time to live far more worthwhile, enjoyable and fulfilling lives.
Natural Humanists recognise the huge potential benefits of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.), for humanity, for the planet, for its environment, and for all living things, so they’re very supportive of its carefully managed expansion.
They acknowledge that Artificial Intelligence is, potentially, a force for significant good in the world, and they recognise its huge potential for things like[i]:
- Allowing products to be produced in the most efficient way possible, making best use of workers’ time, freeing them from demeaning, repetitive and dangerous tasks and allowing them to spend their time on more meaningful and fulfilling activities.
- Allowing ‘true democracy’ and the control of the State by the people, not vice versa.
- Designing and developing innovative methods of healthcare[ii], including diagnosis, health promotion, preventative healthcare, rehabilitation and treatment, as well as discovering new drugs to benefit human beings and animals, enabling automated treatment and surgery, eliminating waiting lists for diagnosis and treatment and making all types of healthcare available to the poorest and most geographically-isolated people in the world[iii].
- Ensuring that people in developing countries have access to a secure and reliable supply of adequate nutritious food[iv].
- Ensuring that products all have the longest lifespan possible and can be easily and effectively recycled[v].
- Giving every human being easy access to reliable information and the ability to communicate freely, without barriers[vi].
- Greatly improving the efficiency of agricultural land use[vii], allowing land to be rewilded, to provide biodiverse environments.
- Improving human nutrition throughout the world[viii].
- Increasing efficiency and replacing human workers with technology, both of which can save money that can potentially be redirected to protecting and improving the environment or reducing global poverty.
- Minimising waste and the natural resources needed to produce products[ix].
- Monitoring deforestation[x].
- Maximising energy efficiency in all areas of life[xi].
- Planning and managing a fully coordinated, extremely efficient communal public transport system for all passengers, commercial traffic and freight.
- Predicting climate change and the potential impact of different methods of dealing with it[xii].
- Supervising, monitoring and protecting children, while maximising their privacy and freedom and protecting their natural human rights.
Natural Humanists believe that, whenever possible, unless it would be unnecessarily harmful to the environment, or would reduce human health or safety, or the quality of human beings’ lives, technology should always be embraced.
In such circumstances, they believe that technology should be used to replace every human being’s job, and to perform or assist with every activity usually performed by human beings, whenever it’s environmentally responsible to do so, and whenever such technology is able to perform these tasks as efficiently and effectively as human beings can, or even more so, particularly if this then frees humans to take part in more worthwhile or meaningful activities. They believe that it’s not just animals that should be freed to live a natural life, but human beings as well.
They believe that, if replacing a human being with technology saves a business, or the State, money, but means that those human beings lose an income, then society has a responsibility to ensure that everybody replaced with technology has access to a decent income, either from a more meaningful and worthwhile job elsewhere, or through state-benefits, which should be funded through taxation of those businesses which use this technology to replace human workers, or by taxation of the purchasers of the products or services that these businesses provide.
Natural Humanists are hugely in favour of both technology and human-innovation, and they support constant research into technological innovations and advancements, but only if these are morally responsible and not likely to cause harm.
They are, however, against the hugely wasteful and inefficient capitalist method of such advancement, which involves a huge amount of wasteful duplication, all of which is paid for by purchasers of the end product through a higher sale price, and all of which avoids cooperation in the efficient development of positive technologies, or results in the creation of technologies which are unnecessary, wasteful of resources, potentially harmful to human beings or the environment, or lead to the ‘enslavement’ of human beings in unnecessary work, that is needed to produce, transport, store, retail, maintain and dispose of completely unnecessary ‘stuff’.
They acknowledge that many technological advancements are of limited value to humanity or the planet and are mainly about making one company’s products more saleable than another’s, or about persuading us, through marketing, which is an efficient, but immoral form of ‘brainwashing’, that we ‘need’ the latest new ‘must have’ product, upgrade or accessory.
They also believe that, wherever possible, new products, and all of their component parts, should be upgradable and repairable, and should be compatible with other products and accessories made by other manufacturers, to maximise their lifespan, and minimise the need for accessories that are only useable with one product, or only with products from one manufacturer.
They believe that human beings, collectively, should look at every single problem in society, and every single problem with the planet, and should come up with as many environmentally responsible technological solutions to these problems as possible. However, they believe that the design, creation and worldwide distribution and sale of these forms of technology should be strictly on a not-for-profit basis, with no wealthy business owner ever becoming even more rich in the process.
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References
[i] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[ii] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[iii] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[iv] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[v] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[vi] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[vii] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[viii] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[ix] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart.. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[x] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[xi] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures
[xii] Rossi, Francesca; Schoenstein, Michael; Russell, Stuart.. “AI’s potential futures: Mitigating risks, harnessing opportunities” 19 December 2024. oecd.ai. 2 June 2025. https://oecd.ai/en/wonk/ai-potential-futures