ARTICLES

Empathy in the Time of Technology: How Storytelling is the Key to Empathy

Abstract

Will the H+ technologies that our accelerating future promises enable us to increase our empathy to others? Or will their use decrease our ability to understand “the other” that exists outside our own selves, families, communities and cultures? As the world grows smaller and more connected, humans within it will grow ever more divergent because of their possession – or not – of a multitude of H+ technologies, and so the role of empathy grows larger and more important than ever. So what will technology need to enable empathy? The oldest of all artistic forms: storytelling.

WHY I BELIEVE IN PARTICIPATING IN THE H+ FUTURE

Abstract

The most important issue of the 21st Century will be how humankind deals with the accelerated advances in technology and how that will affect us and our world. Chief among the changes are those possible from the present Bio-tech Revolution on the human species itself. We must deal with the H+ future head on, because in all of human history, we have never been able to successfully suppress unwanted progress in the long term, be it technological, social or biological. Therefore, I believe it is my responsibility as an artist, a parent and a citizen to help ask the questions and craft the messages before it’s too late.