Technology is Evil

An argument with myself

Technique has become all-encompassing in modern society, trapping humanity within its systems. — Jacques Ellul

I hold multiple perspectives on technology. It is both a force of nature and a tool. Technologies like language and writing have allowed humans to project ideas across time, though unintended consequences inevitably follow.

Artificial Intelligence

Jacques Ellul viewed machines as mechanisms driven toward efficiency rather than truth or beauty. Technology fundamentally serves to increase profit by outcompeting rivals — a pattern I've personally employed by learning new programming languages and AI models to gain marketplace advantage.

Pure Power

Technology's essential function is concentrating power. Wealthy institutions leverage computational resources to reshape labor markets, while individuals feel compelled to adopt new technologies simply to remain economically viable. The network effect makes resistance seemingly impossible.

Efficiency Over Humanity

Compare mainstream technological adoption with Amish communities, which collectively evaluate technologies based on their impact on family and community communication. Computerization has accelerated change beyond individual control, while AI compounds information production exponentially.

Propaganda

Certain actors weaponize disruption for political gain, while decentralized technologies — open-source software, blockchain — promise to redistribute power back to individuals. Though these too become enslaved to perpetual technological competition.

Artistic Tension

I use AI tools while attempting to assert creative agency. I question whether AI choice represents genuine free will or merely selection from predetermined possibilities. AI simultaneously empowers individuals while serving surveillance systems.

Lord of the Rings

Tolkien's narrative applies here as metaphor: communities adopt "power" technologies to compete with rivals, inadvertently strengthening a larger controlling force. Only an outsider motivated by compassion can resist the ring's corruption.

Balance Pity Love

Ellul identified technique, money, and government as competing forces. Add corporations to this balance. Community-based decentralization might create space for individual autonomy — though blockchain repeats this pattern: new technology solving technological problems while creating fresh ones.

Can love and compassion counter technology's dehumanizing effects?