AI NEWS PAGE DOSSIER
Tristan Harris
Tristan Harris's file: persuasive technology, Google's attention machine, Time Well Spent, The Social Dilemma, and the warning that AI may replay social media at higher speed.
Harris came out of Stanford’s persuasive-technology world, worked inside Google, warned colleagues that the attention economy was manipulating billions of people, turned that critique into a movement and nonprofit, and then carried the same incentives-first argument into the AI boom.
HOW THE HELL DID TRISTAN HARRIS GET HERE?
2013
THE GOOGLE DESIGNER WRITES THE ATTENTION WARNING FROM INSIDE
While at Google, Harris created an internal presentation titled A Call to Minimize Distraction & Respect Users’ Attention, arguing that product design was shaping users’ behavior at enormous scale.
RECEIPTS: Center for Humane Technologyfirst-party
2016
TIME WELL SPENT BECOMES A MOVEMENT
Harris helped turn concern about manipulative design and the attention economy into the Time Well Spent movement, pushing technology companies toward more humane incentives.
RECEIPTS: Center for Humane Technologyfirst-party
2018
THE CRITIQUE GETS AN INSTITUTION
Harris co-founded the Center for Humane Technology with Aza Raskin and Randima Fernando to address harms created by technology business models and design incentives.
RECEIPTS: Center for Humane Technologyfirst-party
2020
THE SOCIAL DILEMMA PUTS THE ATTENTION MACHINE ON NETFLIX
Harris became a central subject in The Social Dilemma, bringing concerns about persuasive design, social platforms and algorithmic incentives to a mass audience.
RECEIPTS: Center for Humane Technologyfirst-party
2023
NOW THE SAME WARNING MOVES TO AI
Harris and Aza Raskin presented The AI Dilemma, arguing that competitive incentives around rapidly advancing AI could reproduce and intensify earlier social-technology failures.
RECEIPTS: Center for Humane Technologyfirst-party