A tech investor once nailed Father Eric Salobir with this quip: “I only invest in the seven deadly sins because that’s what pays off.” As if it were the secret of the confession, the Dominican obviously refuses to give the name of this honest financier who synthesizes the mechanics of the greatest creation of wealth in history. Because the object of the tech giants corresponds strangely with the september peccata capitalia, what are (need we remind you?), gluttony, lust, pride, greed, envy, anger and laziness: from Instagram to Netflix via LinkedIn or UberEats, the spectrum is well covered. And as an Apple ad claimed, “There is an app for that”.
“Investors are as responsible as entrepreneurs,” notes Eric Salobir, scanning a gathering of the two tribes gathered that day at the International Cybersecurity Forum (FIC) in Montreal, the place of our first meeting. “We will never do long-term business in a rotten society,” he sighs. For ten years, Brother Salobir has been on mission. Literally as well as figuratively. The apostolate of this Dominican priest, ordained in 2003 after studying business, consists of instilling more ethics in the world of tech, which needs it. As “consultant” of the dicastery (division of the Roman curia) for the communication of the Holy See, he also advises the pope on these questions.
Eric Salobir is a tall, friendly guy who looks ten years younger than his age (53). When we visit him at the convent of the Annunciation in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, he receives in a sweater and sneakers with the look of a technophile, a bit of an ideal son-in-law, if we dare say so. The only slight concession to ecclesiastical codes is a flawless side parting. For the rest, it’s more Ralph Lauren polo shirt than homespun dress. He mainly gets supplies from Apple: Apple Watch Ultra (that of athletes), iPad Mini on which he takes all his notes, MacBook, iPhone latest model. Thin visible clue of a good living side – confirmed by his relatives -, a printer is placed on a box of Lynch-Bages (a Pauillac grand cru classé).
Collision with the economic model of tech
Eric Salobir walks on a narrow ledge with his idea of raising the ethical level of technology. It assumes a head-on collision with the economic models of tech, “which were flawed from the start, but whose dangers no one saw. When they appeared, the boat had already left the port. always on the lowest bidder, and that’s the tragedy.”
The names that the Dominican does not dare to mention are those of Meta, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Google, or Snapchat. Their negative impact on society is widely documented. A search in scientific databases with the terms “social media use and depression” return no less than 116,000 mentions and references since 2019, not even counting the damning internal research revealed by the american press.
The other ethical project is artificial intelligence (AI). Initially, everyone believed that newcomers like Sam Altman, co-founder of OpenAI, who very early on denounced the risks of these AIs, would take up these questions. But the opposite trend prevailed. In a few months, the proponents of this arms race have dismantled their teams of ethicists, often made up of dozens of high-level engineers. And the young generation of artificial intelligence entrepreneurs who, for the blink of an eye, we had thought capable of having learned the lessons of the past, quickly donned with delight the muddy Nikes of their elders. Even before reaching maturity, the idea of responsible AI had given way to competitive pragmatism.
This diagnosis is shared by Brother Salobir with his chosen language: “Far too many technologies are, at best, developed for the benefit of the user.” For him, it is a diversion of the very object of technological progress which should on the contrary appease and contribute to making more equitable “a society which I unfortunately consider to be in a bit of a bad way from a social, political, economy, with fractures appearing openly. All of this will require rethinking business models. Subsequently, history and society will judge the role and the positive or negative contribution of each. Some will be considered the modern Edison and others as having effectively damaged, spoiled our social bond.”
Silicon Valley’s Favorite Priest
Faced with this, the idealistic, hyperactive and technophile priest has chosen to deploy the same tools as those he wants to convince, namely a philanthropic vehicle supported by powerful allies. In 2012, Eric Salobir created the Human Technology Foundationwhich he made the vehicle of his action to, as he says, “untwist” the world of tech.
He intends to take the world of technology from the back by persuading its actors that ethics in business is not an ornamental abstraction, but has tangible consequences on stock market prices. This requires the involvement of all stakeholders: “The most resilient companies are those that have taken care of their entire ecosystem. Concretely, this means not mistreating its employees or starving its suppliers.” For the Dominican, even more than the entrepreneurs themselves, it is the investors who control the main ethical lever of the sector.
In order to frame his sermon, Eric Salobir needed a recognized financial gauge. He found it with the European SFDR regulations (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation) which imposes on investment funds obligations of transparency on their practices in terms of sustainability and social standards which condition long-term profitability, as he will repeat at the Economic Meetings of Aix-en-Provence in early July.
Schizophrenics-repentants of tech
The second floor of his edifice is made up of the support he was able to rally. The Board of the Human Technology Foundation is a Who’s Who of finance and technology. Its members are Prince Nikolaus of Liechtenstein, James Manyika, one of the leaders of Google, who worked for the Obama administration and who is also professor emeritus at Oxford. Other leaders of weight, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, and Carlo d’Asaro Biondo, former boss of Google Europe. This board restricted is therefore an aggregate of tech-repentant schizophrenics. Manyika is still in business at Google – the embodiment of all the excesses denounced (with moderation) by Salobir; Hoffman is an apologist for the growth at all costs he theorized in his essay Blitzscaling (published in French by Buchet-Chastel), principles he celebrates weekly in his “Masters of Scale” podcast.
Carlo d’Asaro Biondo, who spent ten years of his life selling Google’s advertising optimization, is a fan of Salobir; the two met in 2016 when then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt fancied meeting the pope. The Italian is today an ardent promoter of a third way in capitalism, subject of a forthcoming book; he defends the need “for a new social pact, because deep down, he says, most of us today doubt capitalism. We see its powerlessness in the face of the challenges posed by global warming or the growing tension in the face of a manifestly unjust distribution of wealth. The Internet and globalization make these limits more and more glaring.” He is now a powerful supporter of the HTF.
The big question obviously bears on the effectiveness of the action of the Dominican priest. He remains discreet about his contacts in tech and financial circles. Relatives say he has met many Big Tech bosses, as well as those of large investment funds. To hear the Dominican, “things are moving” and the conversations are substantial. But neither is he naive about the risk of a ethics-washing similar to green-washing with which many companies have lacquered themselves.
The real limitation of the Human Technology Foundation is its lack of means. Despite its powerful sponsors, it appears too frugal and understaffed compared to similar American foundations. “The game is not won, recognizes Eric Salobir. We can quite end up with a certain number of people, climatosceptic equivalents, all-out liberal-libertarians who will succeed in ensuring that we stop ask ourselves these questions, and who then will sweep us away.”