Innovation for human happiness
By Jan Rosier, Ordinary Professor, UCD Dublin / Tim Brys, Dr in artificial intelligence, VUB / Eric van Overloop, Managing Director TAC, Wilrijk / Thierry De Baets, Orthopaedic traumatologist, AZ Turnhout / Nick Van Langendonck, author of “Doing Good Works! / Aviel Verbruggen, emeritus full professor, UAntwerpen
Technological innovation is rightly seen as the source of progress, the engine that drives the economy and raises our standard of living. What we are witnessing today is an industrial revolution where – more than ever – the frequency and intensity of converging technologies are leading to a storm of new developments. Industrial and academic research institutions are investing heavily in these innovative projects. But have the social and ethical implications always been adequately considered? Do all developments serve human happiness?
Critical questions
Some years ago, an ‘innovative’ cancer drug was launched in the US that did not increase either the quality or the longevity of cancer patients (1 2). It led to the cynical question of whether the drug was developed for the patient or for the shareholder. Researchers from Leiden recently showed that pioneering biomedical technologies lead to inequality in access to care (3). There cannot be enough biomedical innovation but access to this care will not increase through innovation of production processes in monopolistic markets. Thus, the number of innovative approaches to make top medical care widely available can be counted on one hand.Similarly, digital innovation is leading to what Shoshana Zuboff has called ‘surveillance capitalism'(4), to an ever-increasing addiction to technologies that do not make people happier, and to potentially large-scale social disruption with AGI(5), all without sufficient democratic debate. However, 41% of Flemings think digital technology is being forced on them and the majority in the US wants a ban on AGI, while the government continues to deregulate it (6 7).In a world where technological progress raging, the question arises: who or what are we innovating for? True progress should serve humanity as a whole, not just a select few well-off. Does this innovation not overlook the happiness of the many? Even the great promises of social media are unravelling more and more into rancidity and dangers, even to the death of bullied teenagers (8). Who has become happier because of social media?
1 https://www.standaard.be/cnt/dmf20170502_02863070 2 Rupp, T. and Zuckerman, P. (2017) JAMA Internal Medicine Vol177,2 3 https://www.theguardian.com/science/political-science/2018/mar/16/who-benefits-from-biomedical-science 4 https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/oct/04/shoshana-zuboff-surveillance-capitalism-assault-human-automomy- digital-privacy 5 AGI Artificial General Intelligence 6 https://www.imec.be/sites/default/files/2025-03/imec.digimeter-2024-rapport.pdf 7 https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/aims-survey-supplement-2023 8 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolescence_(TV_series)
More human innovation
Companies innovate because they are driven by mutual competition in a free market. This is a good thing because it has improved the lot of many. Our standard of living has increased compared to previous centuries because of the flood of innovations generated by entrepreneurs and universities. But the contemporary convergence of technologies leads to an unprecedented flow of novelties that we must ask ourselves whether we should just blindly absorb. Innovation should be a force for making the world more humane: by focusing innovation on human happiness – such as climate goals or biomedical research – rather than financial returns or prestige, we create a future where technology and progress serve everyone. ‘Investigate all, preserve the good,’ echoes the biblical wisdom (9).
9 1 Thessalonians 5, 22
Tempering and steering
Not everything new is better. Traditional farming and animal husbandry is more people- friendly but does not get a place because it does not fit with technological progress. The same goes for our education methods. By definition, innovation is seen as the tool that will save us from all problems, while the social and ethical consequences are not sufficiently considered. The academic innovation literature and the philosophical analyses related to it teach us that it is possible to simultaneously temper research and development and steer it towards human- and happiness-converging innovations by using the competitive power of a free market. Instead of seeing innovation as unquestionable, the task of academia should be to critically analyse the latest technologies for their happiness-enhancing potential for each of us and to explore the extent to which happiness-enhancing innovations can be as widely as possible. Wouldn’t it be good if above the entrance of every university or industrial R&D laboratory there were a sign with the maxim ‘remember humanity’?
10 https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691265605/hopeful-pessimism?srsltid=AfmBOopQIOCjNSJ2QQqL- ya6jawNL-An2iV8fMJUtjV44-bjH6oWRvEp
Pessimism
Are we pessimistic? Definitely, but that’s not the point. In her most recent book Hopeful Pessimism(10), philosopher Mara van der Lugt of St Andrews invites us to think about pessimism differently: not as synonymous with despair, but as compatible with hope.Pessimism differs profoundly from doom-and-gloom thinking: doomsayers assume that things will fundamentally go wrong. Pessimism can warn us of what is going wrong and urge appropriate action as philosopher Ignaas Devisch rightly suggested here11. So what we should avoid is not pessimism, but fatalistic resignation. We need to ask ourselves: what really makes us happy and what kind of innovation is needed for that? Do we dare to engage in that debate?
11 De Standaard 30 September 2023 Column Ignaas Devisch
Opinion by:
Jan Rosier, Ordinary Professor, UCD Dublin
Tim Brys, Dr in artificial intelligence,
VUB Eric van Overloop, Managing Director TAC, Wilrijk
Thierry De Baets, Orthopaedic traumatologist, AZ Turnhout
Nick Van Langendonck, author of “Doing Good Works!
Aviel Verbruggen, emeritus full professor, UAntwerpen
