There are so-called “classics” you enjoy in high school but later set aside. You grow up, develop critical thinking, and learn to steer clear of all that quasi-philosophical junk food. Of course, you used to love the soul-searching fluff—and you still proudly admit it—but as a rational and well-educated adult, you now believe that real philosophy, psychology, and artistic understanding lie elsewhere.

Your struggles with mainstream culture are intertwined with your disillusionment toward those former alternative heroes—once idols of resistance, now reduced to background noise in the machinery of commerce.

Same here.

But sometimes, a happy accident occurs. I pick up a book I haven’t touched in decades, with ambivalent feelings. It’s like meeting an old friend who once joined you in wild parties and youthful shenanigans, but whose memory now feels almost dangerous—like it might implode the stable universe of your carefully curated adult self.

Somewhere in my library, buried under years of dust and detachment, lies Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Occasionally, I spot its spine and feel a deep pull—quickly overcome by the voice of adult sanity. But today is different.

While writing an article on Jacques Ellul’s philosophy of technology in the digital age, I decided to follow a sudden inner spark and gave the book another look. Well, that’s not entirely true. I’m deceiving you a bit here. I didn’t know it would help me reflect on technology. I was just curious. The book called to me—and I answered. Everything else is an ex-post rationalization.

The truth is, it really is helping me explore new perspectives—especially the problem I’ve been grappling with: the anti-technology stance that radiates from Ellul’s work.

Between what Pirsig calls the “classical” and “romantic” attitudes toward technology lies a space where we can engage in meaningful dialogue—especially in the age of so-called “artificial intelligence.” (I use the term cautiously, as it is both overhyped and an inadequate description of what contemporary society generally refers to: large language models and generative software.) Not a vague, compromised middle ground, but a realistic and open-minded one.

Some time ago, a group of scientists produced a dark vision of our future—AI 2027—which is available online. I appreciate their effort, though I must admit I haven’t fully explored all of their arguments yet. They present two future scenarios. One of them, called “RACE,” is especially unsettling. Still, I see their work as a serious attempt to frame our technological future using conceptual rigor and data.

But every mental experiment like this has its limits, because it is—perhaps even unconsciously—rooted in a Spinozan view of overwhelming logical determination of human life and global history. There are ruptures (and technology has caused at least three of them—namely, the industrial revolutions, including the silicon one), which change the rules of the game entirely. Yet there are also continuities. We cannot predict what will be, even if we have a sense of where history’s momentum is heading now.

The same holds for the ever-returning question: are we living in the early stages of a new world war?

The answers are dialectical, as is our reality. There is no simple “either–or.” We always exist in a state of polarity, which eventually explodes—or implodes—into a new form of being. In classical terms, this is the negation of the negation. Our future grows from our present, retaining elements of our struggle while also transcending them.

But the fuel of dialectical transformation is quantity—and technology is now reaching another quantitative threshold. “AI” is no longer confined to our computers or smartphones; it’s embedded in refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines. The AI 2027 team presents a plausible trajectory showing how AI might not only be a product of human endeavor, but begin to produce itself—causing a logarithmic expansion of its capabilities.

I believe Ellul has more in common with Pirsig than one might assume. Unlike some of his followers—Ted Kaczynski, for example—Ellul cannot easily be labeled an anti-technological pessimist. He described the world as it is, not as it should be. Because he believed in dialogue. Therefore, the response to our current technological challenges must also be dialogical—involving everyone, especially the marginalized and oppressed—rather than resorting to destruction of machines (or humans, in the case of the Unabomber).

On the dual perspectives of the “classical” (science, order) and the “romantic” (counterculture, resistance), Pirsig writes:

“This is the source of the trouble. Persons tend to think and feel exclusively in one mode or the other and in doing so tend to misunderstand and underestimate what the other mode is all about.”

And therefore:

“There is no point at which these visions of reality are unified.”

Dialectics appears to be a classical mode of thought—and often, it is. But to me, the important task is not only to think in both modes, but to feel them simultaneously. This won’t necessarily help us make better predictions, but it will prepare us for the future—mentally and bodily—using both our prefrontal cortex and our limbic system.

That vision still comforts me. It reminds me that I am human. And even if we are to inhabit a future in which humanity no longer holds a dominant role (and perhaps that could be a fruitful development for a species that has inflicted so much harm on itself and the planet), our unique synthesis of reason and emotion is what distinguishes us from machines. It’s what makes us—at least for now—irreplaceable.

Are you afraid that you might no longer be the “masters of creation”?

Me neither.