Unbounded: 2 Mins Edgewise
How tech for the deaf community reminded me surveillance isn’t innovation
Unbounded: 2 Minutes Edgewise delivers sharp, fast takes on current events, fresh revelations, and just cool things. Provocative or hopeful or fiery — it will always be brief, always grounded, and always unbounded.
Imagine if the world’s best engineers weren’t fine-tuning surveillance tech or optimising ad clicks.
Imagine if their talent was spent on helping people live fuller, freer lives, rather than keeping you doomscrolling.
That’s what I started thinking about this week after discovering Migam.ai – a Polish company using AI to support over 80 million people worldwide whose first language is sign language (and the more than 360 million who have disabling hearing loss).
Their tech helps deaf and hard-of-hearing communities participate fully and equitably in society so that they can build the lives they want. This is the kind of tech grounded in dignity and possibility, and matters most from a human-centric perspective.
It made me pause. Because for those of us deep in the trenches of ethical and responsible AI governance, it’s easy to become consumed by the harms: surveillance, bias, manipulation. The ways unconstrained and “self-regulated” tech continues to weaken democratic institutions and erode human agency.
Don’t get me wrong – we must be alarmed. But, not all tech is extractive. I’m reminded that there’s another kind – quieter, purpose-driven and human-centred. The kind that makes someone’s day better without needing to track them first. Tech that helps people flourish.
This all then got me questioning whether or not regulation risks stifle this kind of human-centred, beneficial innovation. I don’t think so. Here’s why:
Regulation threatens surveillance capitalism, not innovation.
I’ve said this in writing, in interviews, and on panels: the “regulation kills innovation” narrative is BS. It’s not regulation that’s undercutting innovation, but rather the surveillance business model that can't survive transparency, democratic oversight, or accountability. This is why big tech players sound this bogeyman alarm. Not because they fear it hobbles their ability to create, but because regulation threatens unchecked power to extract and profit.
Useful innovation doesn’t depend on surveillance.
Innovation can thrive without tracking, profiling, or manipulating. This kind of accessibility tech doesn’t need to invade your privacy to be effective. And if we stopped equating surveillance business models with these kinds of useful innovations, maybe policymakers wouldn’t be made so afraid to regulate.Small innovators are building what we need.
When dominant platforms are allowed to gobble up competitors or tilt the policy landscape to preserve their power, we risk smothering the kinds of innovations that are truly in the public interest. We don’t just need regulation to keep us safe. We need it to open space for the kind of innovations we actually want in our societies. Perhaps, tougher regulation might be the thing that really sets innovation free.