Thirty years of digital technology development built spectacular infrastructure for transactional trust—the trust that makes it safe to exchange money, data, and goods. Payment systems, verification protocols, review platforms: technology has been very good at this. But technology built almost nothing to support relational trust—the trust that says: will you show caring and concern for me even when it’s hard? Will you still be here after we disagree? Can I show you who I actually am?
The consequences are now measurable. A loneliness epidemic costing hundreds of billions annually in healthcare and lost productivity. Communities fractured by algorithms designed to capture attention by hyping up nervous systems. Wealth concentrated while social fabric eroded. And now AI is racing down the same path, with impacts that will be worse because the technology is more powerful and less stable.
This is not only a moral failure. It is an economic one. There is immense prosperity in a healthy society where people experience psychological and emotional well-being. That prosperity has been left on the table. Connection, belonging, and human trust are fundamental to prosperity—and no one has built the digital technology to support them, until now.