I’ve been looking at it more from an ecological angle.

“We have tied all of the smooth functioning of society to producing new technology” — this implies it was a deliberate decision. Whereas in reality, there’s a selection effect where leaders who embrace technology the most aggressively simply get rewarded in money and power, and they go on to promote accelerationist views with that power.

With the logical conclusion that people are increasingly treated as resources to be harvested by technology.

I don’t know the answer, but I refuse to accept determinism (despite not believing in free will, separate conversation), and I think that framing this as an ecological competition between species — humans vs machines — is clarifying.