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person2010s-present

Tristan Harris

Disciplines:
technology
ethics/design ethics

Summary

American technologist and former Google design ethicist who became the leading advocate for humane technology design — arguing that social media companies deliberately exploit psychological vulnerabilities.

Core Contribution

The Social Dilemma (Netflix, 2020): brought the argument about social media's attention economy to a mass audience. A Persuasive Technology presentation at Google (2013) went viral internally and led to his role as Google's first Design Ethicist. Co-founded the Center for Humane Technology.

Key Spikes & Highlights

  • His 144-slide presentation 'A Call to Minimize Distraction & Respect Users' Attention' was shared to all of Google's 25,000 employees — making the internal critique of attention engineering visible within Silicon Valley.

Historical Influences

B.J. Fogg

Intellectual Lineage

Human-Computer Interaction Attention Economics

Contemporaries & Peers

Aza Raskin Roger McNamee

Minds Influenced

Technology Policy

Intellectual Posterity

Humane Technology Movement

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