The question of technology

Dialogue between Yuk Hui, Hartmut Rosa and Santiago Sánchez Migallón.

The question of technology is without a doubt one of the big topics of our time. The arrival of advances that are at once disruptive and ubiquitous, such as artificial intelligence and gene editing, revive classic questions once again: will technological progress lead us towards the utopia promised by the Silicon Valley gurus, or towards the disastrous apocalyptic dystopia we have seen so often in films? Will this process be inevitable or are there alternatives? Is there a single process or, as Hui argues, should we in fact be talking about technodiversity? Is technology the opposite of nature or are there options for compatibility between ecology and machine? Is technological progress tied to capitalism, meaning that dropping the latter necessarily means rejecting the former? 

The Critical School alerted us to the dark side of enlightened rationality, showing us that techno-scientific promises of salvation were a long way from leading us to the Promised Land. Is this view still valid? What are the new forms of contemporary alienation? Is the acceleration of time posited by Hartmut Rosa the root cause of our malaise? And where does the way out lie?