In terms of real world problems: climate change, food scarcity, poverty, water quality and access, health care, etc. a lot of the solutions are technical. And a lot of those solutions are directly or indirectly about making energy cheaper and cleaner. With cheap clean energy, you can address climate change. You can desalinate water (at scale). If you have clean water, you can address food scarcity (e.g. irrigate desserts). You can also address sanitation. Cheap energy also enables transport, having light in people's home (education). so that addresses poverty. And so on. All that comes from just a handful of technical solutions that make energy cheap and clean. Anyone working on those things is accomplishing more than decades worth of well intentioned but not very effective activism, charity, diplomacy, etc. I'm sure AI has a role to play here as well.
The point is moot anyway. We're not going to turn into Luddites and competition continuously drives us to do better. Which means people keep on figuring out technical solutions to challenges around them. Technology isn't inherently good or evil. But it can be very effective sometimes. And of course there is a lot of not so effective or misguided stuff as well. Part of the journey.