Technology has made us extraordinarily connected. But connectivity and human connection aren’t necessarily the same thing. Opening the Rhodes Forum on Technology and Society, Forum Sponsor Kevin Xu invited those gathered at Rhodes House to consider the remarkable mix of individuals in the room, and the possibilities for connection that produced. In a room where Rhodes Scholars sat alongside individuals who have helped to run countries, or built billion-dollar organisations from scratch, there was extraordinary potential not just in the ideas being discussed, but the connections between the people there to discuss them.
This was a fitting start to a day that repeatedly returned to questions around what we choose to preserve as technology becomes more capable and increasingly serves more of our day-to-day needs. If technology removes friction from our lives, which forms of friction might be worth preserving? Or, more broadly, what is worth cultivating simply because it makes us more human?
This year’s forum, Human by Design: Technology, Agency, and The Futures We Choose picked up where last year’s forum on technological abundance left off. In conversations that spanned healthcare, politics and democracy, robotics, misinformation and human relationships, a core theme continually emerged: technology can create more capacity, access and opportunity, but that technological progress is not simply a question of what can be made possible. It’s also about what we decide those possibilities are for.
Dr. Rana el Kaliouby invited the audience to consider that distinction through the lens of human connection in her session AI, Agency and Human Flourishing. Where previous technologies competed for our attention, AI capabilities mean there’s a competition for something beyond our attention; our intimacy, confidence and even our affection. Technologies can help to strengthen human relationships with AI founded in helping people with autism recognise facial non-verbal cues or tools that help us navigate disagreements more constructively. But the question then isn’t whether technology brings us closer together or pushes us apart, it extends to when technology mediates human connection and when it acts as a substitute for it. While describing a debate between her children on following a recipe, Dr. el Kaliouby invited members to consider the everyday frictions technology can remove. Her son no longer calls his grandmother in Cairo to ask about a recipe because an AI assistant can walk him through it. She also referenced examples of AI agent note-takers attending meetings on someone’s behalf. The discussion then led to what might be lost alongside the inefficiencies. The phone call about the recipe might have led to a longer conversation with a relative. The meeting might have raised a difficult disagreement to navigate that taught that individual something on how to negotiate differences. We began to consider that mistakes, discomfort and even failure are part of how we develop.
The relationship between abundance and scarcity was examined at a societal level with the panel Rebuilding Democracy: On Restoring Trust and Strengthening Institutions. Panellists drew on lived experiences with misinformation where false narratives have been created and coordinated at scale, with agentic AI able to make this messaging increasingly tailored to an individual. Panel members discussed that when we struggle to distinguish what is true from what is false, maintaining a shared reality becomes far harder and without this shared picture of reality, collective action becomes harder too. The conversation positioned collective action and response as the underpinnings of democracy and argued that the right political infrastructure was fundamental to abundance and optimism about the future of technological advances.
This panel took the concept of trust beyond whether society believes the technology itself, and its outputs, and looked towards the creators and custodians of these systems; what data they use, how they are governed and where accountability ultimately lies.
The Missing Half: Rethinking Women’s Health brought these questions to life highlighting that AI does not enter society with a clean slate. AI systems are trained with existing knowledge and can therefore inherit gaps and inequalities. So little is understood about women’s health because of, amongst other reasons, the complexity of medical testing related to hormonal fluctuations throughout a woman’s life. The discussion exposed that the baseline for the majority of medical datasets and the treatments and procedures they inform is a white male aged between 18 and 40. Panel members agreed that AI represented tremendous potential for creating greater access to healthcare and information, but incomplete or historically unrepresentative data risks reproducing the shortcomings of the systems it is intended to improve.
The Forum returned repeatedly to agency and the concept of tools given purpose by people. Founders can make choices about the organisations they build and the investments they accept, companies can use this disruptive moment in time to optimise data sets and the values embedded in their technology, and Governments can decide how technologies are governed and regulated systemically. Societies will decide, imperfectly but collectively, what they value.
The day ended as a mirror image of how it had begun, highlighting the value of people coming together.
Professor Michael Sandel invited the audience to test ideas and consider their comfort level with different uses of AI in the closing session Ethics in the Age of AI: Will technology change what it means to be human? Audience members were invited to share their perspective and object where they disagreed with one another. Reflecting on the lively exchange around him, Professor Sandel asked members to consider the experience of people gathering to debate ideas, describing it as exhilarating.
This brought the Forum full circle. Human connection is multifaceted, easy to feel but difficult to quantify, and while sometimes inefficient and easier to experience than measure, perhaps that is why it’s worth preserving.