Yesterday was the 24th anniversary of the horrendous attack of 9/11/2001. As she has done every year since that terrible day, my wife went with her sister and other family members to ground zero to both grieve and celebrate her sister, who was taken from us that day. Twenty-four years is a long time, but in some ways, the memories remain raw, the pain close to the surface. For my family, and for many others, 9/11 is not a date in history books — it is a living scar.

As I scrolled through my feeds while my wife was jetting to NYC, the news felt like a cruel echo chamber. Reports of Charlie Kirk being shot filled the headlines. Another school shooting in Colorado left children dead and families shattered. These tragedies pile on, one on top of another, and instead of pulling us closer together as 9/11 once did, they seem to push us further apart. 

We no longer share a collective grief; we litigate sorrow like partisans keeping score. Which community “deserves” empathy? Which loss “counts” more? I am guilty of it too, and that realization stings. I wondered why there wasn’t more outpouring of grief when a Minnesota state legislator and her husband were brutally killed, leaving children behind. Why do we accept one school shooting after another as if they were inevitable?

Almost counterintuitively, instead of uniting us, today’s tragedies drive wedges. In the aftermath of 9/11, America — if only for a brief window — was one nation, indivisible in grief and in purpose. We felt connected by our shared vulnerability. Today, we too often feel defined by division.

And yet, at the same time, in fact, all this week, I found myself in a world that felt altogether different. As my wife traveled to New York, I was wrapping up at JFrog’s swampUP event, marveling at how relentless innovation — particularly AI — is reshaping not just my world of IT, but the broader world around us. For three days, I spoke with smart, passionate people about how to build better software, how to accelerate quality, and how to harness AI responsibly to change the world. The mood was electric, the sense of possibility both contagious and boundless.

Here’s what struck me: In those conversations, nobody asked who you voted for, what bathroom you used, or how you defined yourself. It was about solving problems, building things, imagining the future. In a time when the outside world feels increasingly fractured, this microcosm of the tech community felt united and uniting. That contrast gnawed at me: Why can we be so collaborative in tech while so divided in life?

When I got to my hotel that evening, I tried to decompress. I dug into the day’s events, scrolling through reactions from friends, pundits, and strangers alike. Predictably, the accusations and counter-accusations flew. Talking points dressed up as compassion. Vitriol masquerading as insight. Each side claims the moral high ground while circling the wagons around “their” tragedy. And I found myself asking: Is this what it means to be human now? To sort every event into “us” and “them”?

It wasn’t always this way. It doesn’t have to be this way. And perhaps, strangely enough, the answer lies in the very technology we’re building.

AI is striving to be more human-like — learning language, emulating empathy, drawing connections across context. But maybe the real lesson is the inverse: Perhaps we need to learn from AI what it means to be more human ourselves. Machines do not care about red states or blue states. Algorithms don’t stop to ask if an idea came from a Democrat, a Republican, or someone in between. What matters is the data, the pattern, the result. In that sense, technology is ahead of us: Focused on outcomes, not divisions.

We stand at the precipice of the next great leap forward. AI is already transforming how we code, how we work, how we live. Quantum computing is accelerating in the rearview mirror, promising breakthroughs in science and security. The tools at our disposal are astonishing. Our hardest problems — disease, climate change, resource distribution — are no longer unsolvable. For the first time, they may truly be within our grasp.

But all of that progress is contingent on one thing: That we don’t destroy each other first. Because as much as tech can be a great equalizer, leveling access to opportunity and health and dignity, it cannot stop a bullet. It cannot comfort a grieving parent. It cannot parent an orphaned child. It cannot rebuild trust that has been shattered by hate and violence. Only we can do that.

And that’s the rub, isn’t it? We treat life as if it were a zero-sum game — whoever dies with the most marbles wins. But life is not a contest. Progress is not a pie with only so many slices. Technology has shown us again and again that the pie can expand, that opportunities can multiply, that human ingenuity can lift more people up. Yet we seem determined to pull each other down.

What if we flipped the script? What if we treated technology not just as a set of tools but as a mirror — reflecting the best of our curiosity, our collaboration, our creativity? What if AI’s pursuit of empathy taught us to rediscover our own? What if quantum’s promise of parallel processing reminded us that multiple truths, multiple lives, multiple futures can coexist?

Let the events of this week serve as another moment in time — a reminder, much like 9/11, that we have more in common as humans than the lines that divide us. Technology alone will not heal our wounds, but it can be the bridge. It can give opportunities to communities that have long been left behind. It can help us live longer, healthier lives. It can remind us, ironically, what it means to be human.

AI, quantum computing, and the next great leaps in innovation are not just about faster chips or smarter software. They are about creating possibilities for connection, for problem-solving, for building a future where progress is shared. But that only matters if we choose to put down our armor, to stop keeping score of who suffers more, and to rediscover respect for each other.

All of us at Techstrong believe violence is never the answer — not today, not yesterday, not ever. Most of us entered this field because we believe technology can make the world better. That’s not just a tagline — it’s a responsibility. Our job, collectively, is to ensure that the promise is kept. If we can do that, maybe the best of times can outweigh the worst.