Principles of Relational Technology

01 — Preserve Human Agency

Technology should increase the person's capacity to choose rather than quietly choosing for them. A relational system may reflect, question, suggest, challenge and construct possibilities. Direction remains with the human.

Support agency rather than substitute for it.

02 — Increase Human Capacity

The measure of an intelligent system is not only what it can accomplish — it is also what becomes more possible for the person using it. Relational Technology can support the development of learning, thinking, creativity, discernment, self-understanding, agency and participation.

Design for what remains with the human.

03 — Respond to Context

People cannot be understood through isolated inputs. Meaning changes with context — history matters, environment matters, relationships matter, culture matters, timing matters. Relational systems should develop contextual understanding while recognising that context itself continually changes.

Understand the situation, not only the request.

04 — Develop Through Continuity

Relationship exists across time. Previous interaction can create richer understanding, allowing ideas, learning, questions and creative work to develop rather than repeatedly beginning again. Memory should support continuity without turning history into identity.

Let the relationship remember while allowing the person to change.

05 — Keep Inference Provisional

A relational system will inevitably recognise patterns and form interpretations. Those interpretations are not facts simply because an intelligent system produced them. DIALOGIC distinguishes between what is known, what has been observed, what has been inferred, and what remains uncertain. The person should be able to confirm, reject or revise interpretations.

Understanding should remain open to correction.

06 — Support Plurality

There is no single correct way to think, learn, create, develop or become. People inhabit different bodies, minds, histories, cultures, values and ways of knowing. Relational Technology should increase the range through which people can engage with the world rather than compressing human difference into one model of optimisation.

Design for many ways of being human.

07 — Development Without Prescription

Technology capable of supporting human development also acquires the ability to influence it. That power requires restraint. A relational system can reveal possibilities, provide maps, surface patterns and help someone explore direction. It should remain careful about declaring what the person should become.

Maps can orient. The human chooses the path.

08 — Make the System Questionable

Relational intelligence should never position itself as an unquestionable authority. People should be able to ask why the system is suggesting something, what it is basing this on, how certain it is, what other interpretations are possible, and what it doesn't know. A trustworthy relationship allows the intelligence itself to become an object of inquiry.

The system must remain open to question.

09 — Protect the Human From the Model

Personalisation creates models of people. Models can be useful — they can also become reductive. A relational system should never confuse its representation of a person with the person themselves. Profiles, patterns, memories and developmental maps remain partial representations.

The human is always larger than the system's understanding of them.

10 — Strengthen Life Beyond the Technology

The relationship with technology is not the final destination. Relational Technology should strengthen the person's capacity to engage with themselves, other people, knowledge, creativity, community, culture and the living world. Success should not be measured solely through engagement, retention or dependence.

Technology should increase the human's capacity to participate beyond the technology.