The Machine Stops

The increase in the digitisation of our lives is almost always accompanied or justified in terms of techno-optimist discourses, which emphasise the emancipatory/liberating possibilities of technologies, while eliding its authoritarian/surveillant tendencies. Techno-optimism is a form of techno-fallacy, representing wrong-headed thinking about the power of technology.

It's opposite, techno-pessimism relates to the pernicious powers of technology – that technology reduces our humanity in some way, either our capacities for work or the powers of its destruction. There is a long history of techno-pessimism, represented by among others Luddites, Marxists, Heideggerians, and modern thinkers such as Karl Jaspers and Neil Postman. These critiques are useful in discussions of technology, but there is a danger that they too can slip into essentialist characterisations of people and machines.