Update from March 2026: The website is long gone, the letter never got momentum. But I do still stand with what was manifested in the letter. Actually, with the advent of AI and possibly AGI, a humanity centered thinking and acting in tech is more necessary than ever.
I learned about the Copenhagen Letter on Tech from my dear friend Eric Reiss. He was one of 150 people, that created the letter during three days of the Copenhagen TechFestival 2017. You can read and digitally sign the letter here: copenhagenletter.org
After reading it carefully, I decided to sign the letter and I hope many will follow and will bring the the topics of the letter into every discussion.
While I never wanted to halt on innovation, I constantly wonder, if every new thing, is actually a progress and step to a better world for all of us. I question my own work and the demands of my clients, constantly. This letter sums up so many things for me and provides guidance. Yet, it's up to me and you - those who are working in tech and design, to bring the ethic principles to live. For the benefit of humanity. Of course, I'm fully aware, that I'm failing constantly, but that is not the point. The point is to always try.
Sidenote: If you want an early take on design ethics, power and responsibility, you can browse through the slides of my talk "Critical Interface Design" from 2012.
Update 2026: For archival purposes, I carbon copied the letter here:
THE COPENHAGEN LETTER
Copenhagen, 2017
To everyone
who shapes technology today
We live in a world where technology is consuming society, ethics, and our core existence.
It is time to take responsibility for the world we are creating. Time to put humans before business. Time to replace the empty rhetoric of “building a better world” with a commitment to real action. It is time to organize, and to hold each other accountable.
Tech is not above us. It should be governed by all of us, by our democratic institutions. It should play by the rules of our societies. It should serve our needs, both individual and collective, as much as our wants.
Progress is more than innovation. We are builders at heart. Let us create a new Renaissance. We will open and nourish honest public conversation about the power of technology. We are ready to serve our societies. We will apply the means at our disposal to move our societies and their institutions forward.
Let us build from trust. Let us build for true transparency. We need digital citizens, not mere consumers. We all depend on transparency to understand how technology shapes us, which data we share, and who has access to it. Treating each other as commodities from which to extract maximum economic value is bad, not only for society as a complex, interconnected whole but for each and every one of us.
Design open to scrutiny. We must encourage a continuous, public, and critical reflection on our definition of success as it defines how we build and design for others. We must seek to design with those for whom we are designing. We will not tolerate design for addiction, deception, or control. We must design tools that we would love our loved ones to use. We must question our intent and listen to our hearts.
Let us move from human-centered design to humanity-centered design.
We are a community that exerts great influence. We must protect and nurture the potential to do good with it. We must do this with attention to inequality, with humility, and with love. In the end, our reward will be to know that we have done everything in our power to leave our garden patch a little greener than we found it.
We who have signed this letter will hold ourselves and each other accountable for putting these ideas into practice. That is our commitment.
Sign The Copenhagen Letter
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