TECH Agnostic: How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation

with Harvard/MIT Humanist Chaplain Greg Epstein

Technology was developed as a tool to serve humans, not vice versa. Unfortunately, we humans seem to have forgotten this, as billions worldwide are literally addicted to our smartphones. Many in the upper echelon of technology circles propose and even ominously insist upon humanity serving technology futures. They believe that we, the people, should work towards constant innovation, a technological race to the top, even at the cost of humanity’s future. There is also an emerging thoughtform that suggests that humanity should sacrifice the planet, our very means of existence, to ensure that technology AI data personas would be preserved and reach their ultimate destiny.  

Suppose this idea sounds profoundly unstable and dystopian. In that case, you might be comforted to know that it sounds equally problematic to many specialists in the fields of mental health and ethics. However, we also see that some tech billionaires and Silicon Valley executives are increasingly willing to doom humanity for a tech-centric future. On this episode of the Influence Continuum, I talked with Greg M. Epstein, author of Tech Agnostic, a work described as “How Technology Became the World’s Most Powerful Religion, and Why It Desperately Needs a Reformation.”