European Union's Green Smart Directive or How Resource-Conscious Smart Systems Saved the World

In the 2020s, the devastating effects of anthropogenic climate change became unmistakable. Floods, storms, the mass extinction of flora and fauna, the threats of further pandemics, as well as Russia's war with Ukraine made it necessary for Europeans to act immediately. While the public was still wrangling about the best way to become more resource-conscious, in 2026 the European Union passed a directive that bound “smart”, artificial-intelligence-infused technologies to the goal of reducing resource consumption by law – the Green Smart directive. The present paper traces the impact of Green Smart in three everyday domains: laundry, mobility, and gardening. It shows that Green Smart led to a “decentering” of the human with beneficial effects on the planet as well as individual wellbeing. Upon release of the directive, smart systems immediately installed policies of CO2 avoidance and resource-saving, which had been discussed for centuries already, but had never actually been implemented. While this was accompanied by fierce debates about “freedom” and the “enslavement” of humanity by technology, in everyday life, the policies led to an almost instant reduction in resource consumption. New and adapted everyday practices appeared quickly, and many of them changed people's lives clearly for the better. In general, humanity's attitude toward technology changed profoundly. Instead of expecting technology to be a mere tool, always under the immediate control of people and to be used for whatever people saw fit, technology became understood as a powerful “other”, with its own needs and goals – even if those were designed by humans themselves. Instead of using technology, people started to cooperate and negotiate with technology about better ways of living.