Our default state as humans is pretty awful and materially deprived, so I think making technology to improve our conditions is good. Making technology that does powerful things in the real world is difficult partly because of the vast quantity of data in its structure. If we make powerful AI systems equipped to handle that scale and built to make our lives better, it would be good, but we’re failing to do that which is the issue.
It's not a dichotomy! When I rail against technology, I am not saying that everyone need go back to the stone age. But don't you think there might be a happy medium?
At least personally, I've found that giving up a fair amount of technology in many cases has actually improved life in ways that I didn't think possible. Not everyone needs to be ascetic, but we seem to be headed to a life very tightly integrated with technology, and I think it's arguable that THIS POINT is past the point of that happy medium.
This quote summarizes much of the discourse in HN and the tech industry at large.
As you point out, it is in fact a false dichotomy but it is hard to run counter to hundreds of years of cultural conditioning that has run amok since the start of the industrial revolution. Hobbesian thought is common in these threads!
Luckily, we've had recent thinkers like Ellul, E.F. Schumacher, and Ivan Illich to challenge these entrenched views.
thou i would question the change in 'cultural conditioning' brought by industrialization als in practice it's mostly a means to scale society.
schumacher, being an atheist, is probably the most agreeable of the authors you mentioned.