Center for Humane Technology lays off half its staff to refocus on founder-led projects

Center for Humane Technology is a nonprofit founded in 2017 that campaigns on addictive design and AI risk, with an annual budget of roughly $6 million.

That founder reach — Harris's media profile, documentaries and private access to lawmakers and CEOs — moves the needle on AI risk more than policy papers and litigation.

Tristan Harris (ex-Google product manager), Aza Raskin and Randy Fernando founded the center in 2017 to push tech companies to take responsibility for their products' social consequences; The Social Dilemma made Harris a fixture of conferences, Capitol Hill and Netflix.

CHT's strategy fed state attorneys general investigations into Meta from 2021 and lawsuits over addictive design; Meta agreed this year to settle some suits for billions of dollars, and juries — one hearing Raskin testimony — added penalties. But after a painful 2023 staff retreat Harris moved from executive director to president, and last week the board announced the layoffs and the founder-led refocus.

Shah's stated logic: mass communications create grassroots pressure that unlocks action from the grasstops — 'what we have always done best'.

Even amid courtroom wins, internal debates over whether to target consumers, companies or lawmakers simmered for years, per 16 former staffers.

With a ~$6M budget and similar reserves funded by wealthy families and foundations, CHT competed for attention against larger nonprofits.

Critics inside and outside argue the binding constraint on AI accountability is institutional teeth, not more argument — CHT bet otherwise.

Organizations built around a star face a fork: scale the institution or scale the star. CHT chose the star — cheaper to run, but the dropped functions had just started winning.

As of 2026-10-08 CHT is a roughly half-size organization built around Harris and Raskin — public education, targeted briefings and private coordination — with policy research, litigation support and AI-tool evaluation ended. Harris is promoting The AI Doc, a Netflix documentary released last month urging viewers to demand congressional intervention on AI risks.