The Hippocratic Oath for innovators: First, do no harm in tomorrow’s breakthroughs

In the relentless pursuit of progress, we stand in awe of innovators who reshape our world. From artificial intelligence that mimics human thought to genetic engineering that promises to cure disease, the horizon of possibility expands daily. Yet, with every brilliant breakthrough comes a shadow, a potential for unintended consequences that can ripple through society in devastating ways. The tools we create to connect us can also divide us; the algorithms designed for efficiency can perpetuate deep-seated bias. This raises a crucial question: What is the ethical duty of a creator? It’s time to adapt an ancient creed for the digital age, a Hippocratic Oath for innovators, grounded in the simple, profound principle: First, do no harm.

Beyond the code: The unintended consequences of innovation

Every new technology is a promise. Social media promised a connected global village. The gig economy promised flexible, independent work. Artificial intelligence promised unbiased, data-driven decisions. While these innovations delivered on some promises, they also unleashed a torrent of unforeseen problems. The global village became a battleground for misinformation and polarization. Flexible work often translated to precarious livelihoods with few protections. And AI, trained on flawed human data, learned to replicate and even amplify our worst biases in everything from loan applications to criminal justice.

This is the critical gap where an ethical oath becomes necessary. Innovation is not a sterile exercise in a lab; it is a powerful intervention into the complex, messy fabric of human society. The “move fast and break things” ethos, once celebrated in Silicon Valley, failed to ask a vital question: what, or who, is being broken? The consequences are not just bugs to be patched later. They are real-world harms affecting mental health, economic stability, and social equity. Recognizing this reality is the first step toward a more responsible form of creation, one that moves beyond asking “Can we build this?” to wrestling with the much harder question, “Should we build this?”

Defining the oath: Core principles for responsible creation

Translating the “do no harm” principle into the context of technology requires a clear set of guiding tenets. This modern Hippocratic Oath is not a rigid set of rules, but a framework for ethical deliberation. It is a commitment to a new standard of creation built on foresight and accountability. At its heart, this oath would include several core principles:

• The principle of foresight: This goes beyond simple bug hunting. It involves actively imagining and stress-testing for potential misuse and negative societal impact. Who could be harmed by this technology? How could it be weaponized? What are the worst-case scenarios? Innovators must become “threat modelers” not just for their systems, but for society itself.
• The principle of human-centricity: Technology must serve humanity, not the other way around. This means prioritizing human well-being, dignity, and autonomy over abstract metrics like engagement, efficiency, or profit. When a design choice pits user well-being against platform growth, this principle demands that we choose the user.
• The principle of transparency: The era of the “black box” algorithm is over. Creators have a duty to be transparent about how their technologies work, what data they use, and what their limitations are. Users deserve to understand the forces shaping their digital lives, and only through transparency can we hold systems accountable.
• The principle of accountability: Innovators and the organizations they work for must take ownership of their creations’ impact on the world, both good and bad. This means establishing clear channels for redress when harm occurs and being willing to fundamentally change, or even sunset, a product that proves to be a net negative for society.

From theory to practice: Embedding ethics into the innovation lifecycle

A set of principles is only as valuable as its implementation. To truly live by this oath, ethical considerations cannot be an afterthought or the job of a separate department; they must be woven into the very fabric of the innovation process, from the first brainstorm to the final product launch and beyond. This requires a profound cultural shift. It starts with building diverse teams. When engineers, designers, and product managers all come from the same background, they share the same blind spots. By including sociologists, ethicists, historians, and users from marginalized communities in the development process, teams can identify potential harms they would have otherwise missed.

Practically, this means implementing formal processes like “ethical red-teaming,” where a dedicated group tries to “break” a product not just technically, but socially. It means conducting pre-mortem meetings focused entirely on potential negative outcomes. It also requires challenging the core metrics of success. Instead of only measuring daily active users, what if we also measured the product’s impact on user stress levels or its contribution to political polarization? The work doesn’t end at launch. Continuous, real-world monitoring is essential to see how a technology is truly behaving, and teams must have the courage and autonomy to act on what they find.

The innovator’s dilemma: Balancing progress with precaution

Adopting this oath is not without its challenges. Some will argue that it stifles innovation, slows progress, and puts companies at a competitive disadvantage. They might ask, “If we spend all our time worrying, how will we ever build the future?” This presents a false choice. The oath is not a call to halt progress, but to direct it more wisely. It is a rejection of reckless innovation in favor of responsible innovation. The goal is not to prevent all risk—an impossible task—but to be intentional and deliberate about the risks we choose to take.

The true dilemma lies in balancing the drive for creation with the duty of care. It requires a shift from short-term thinking focused on quarterly earnings to long-term thinking focused on societal health. For an individual creator, this can mean speaking up in a meeting when a feature feels exploitative. For a company, it can mean forgoing a lucrative but ethically questionable product line. This path is undoubtedly harder. It requires more thought, more debate, and more courage. But the alternative—a future littered with the digital debris of well-intentioned but harmful technologies—is far more costly.

The immense power of today’s innovators comes with a profound and unavoidable responsibility. The technologies we are building are not neutral; they are encoded with our values, biases, and priorities. To view this work as purely technical is to abdicate our moral duty. Adopting a Hippocratic Oath for innovators is not about placing restrictive chains on creativity. Instead, it is a guiding compass, ensuring that as we build the world of tomorrow, we do so with intention, humanity, and a steadfast commitment to first do no harm. By embracing foresight, human-centricity, transparency, and accountability, we can steer progress toward a future that is not just smarter and more efficient, but also more just, equitable, and worthy of our highest aspirations.

Image by: Matheus Viana
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