By Caleb Strom
In February 2025, Jonathan Cioran wrote in Mere Orthodoxy about the recent fusion of techno-optimism and far right politics in Silicon Valley. The article, “Iron Sky: Peter Thiel and the Rise of Gay Space Fascism,” made a case that the goal of certain figures in Silicon Valley is to create a society divided between the rich, who have access to advanced technology and live in utopian post-scarcity abundance, and the rest of humanity that lives in poverty.
This dystopian version of techno-optimism is not the only way to think about a technological future. A technological future that is inclusive and empowering to all people, not just a specific class, is possible as well, and such a convivial techno-optimism could be the basis for guiding sustainable development in the coming era of artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and space travel.
The term convivial or conviviality in technology originates with the writings of Ivan Illich, a Catholic priest from the mid-20th century known for advocating for technologies that were human scaled to resist over-reliance on industrial technology. Illich’s goal was economic emancipation, so that humans would not be passive consumers but active producers shaping their destinies and the course of technological development.
Large-scale social systems take on a life of their own and have their own goals apart from the goals of individuals within the system. We can see an example of this in nature in the ant colony. The ant colony itself is a super-organism with its own goal unrelated to the goals of individual ants. By analogy, the global economic system becomes a type of superorganism to which humans in the system are subordinated. To borrow Biblical language, you could call this organism Mammon. When the pursuit of profit drives technological innovation, technology is no longer under human control but under the control of Mammon.
There is a strong thread within the Christian tradition, as well as other traditions, that emphasizes that humans are responsible for caring for creation and that God intends to act through humans to renew the world and bring Heaven to Earth. Convivial technological development would enable humans to take back control of technological development so it can be used to care for God’s world instead of to generate surplus value in the service of Mammon. Specific examples of what convivial technological development could look like include humanoid robots, convivial AIs, and home life-support systems.
Widespread humanoid robots are no longer just science fiction. They may be widespread in 10-20 years. This need not be a negative thing. A major concern with robots is that they would replace low-skill and skilled blue collar workers. Although this threat is real, the nature of the threat is more of a social one than one inherent in the technology itself. The social threat could be mitigated through ensuring that (1) workers have control over the robots and how they are used, and (2) there is a mechanism to compensate any workers that are unable to find comparably paid work either through a universal basic income that covers their cost of living or (possibly) a worker’s dividend where they would receive a cash amount based on the monetization of economic growth from the use of robots.
Would use of robots in a factory still be convivial even if the factory is worker-owned? I would argue yes, if the workers are able to not only repair and control the robots but also don’t actually have the robots doing their job. Instead, they would use the robots to increase their productivity and save labor time. For example, humanoid factory robots in the hands of workers would allow workers to maintain the productivity of their factories through the night and holidays while they rest. This would include robot factories themselves. While worker-owned companies can be for-profit, a worker-owned robot factory, where the production of robots is to support the sustenance and labor of the workers and not to produce surplus value for investors, could also result in cheaper robots making widely available robots more cost-effective.
If factory or industrial robots can be convivial, so can household robots. For example, household humanoid robots help lower- to middle-income families that need to take on multiple jobs to financially support themselves. For example, with small infants and very young children, humanoid robots could engage in the routine childcare of administering naps, feeding, and changing diapers. This would be most feasible if the humanoid robots are also androids, so that their physical ability to handle a baby or small child is at least equivalent to that of an actual human. Parents would not be replaced by robots because they would still be needed to provide human connection and care.
Additionally, teachers at under-resourced schools could use humanoid robots to help them with basic tasks necessary for teaching. For example, the robot could proctor in-class exams and quizzes or help with cleaning the classroom and other routine activities that are necessary but also take away from actual teaching. This would not replace the teacher because the teacher would still be required for the actual teaching (I will get to generative AI, which has potential to impact the teaching process itself), to explain wrong answers, motivate the students through human connection, and make sure that the students are actually learning what they need to learn. In this way, robots would supplement human labor and not replace it.
Another essential part to making household robots convivial would be making them easy to repair. This is one area where religious institutions could be directly involved. For example, churches, mosques, and synagogues could host robot repair cafes and provide Internet access where people can repair or customize their household robots. A present-day example of this is the way that old cars are repaired and recycled in Cuba because new cars have been hard to acquire due to the U.S.-backed blockade. Other examples include church repair clinics and library repair events.
Creating convivial AIs seems more challenging in light of the hype regarding AIs replacing humans entirely, but it is not impossible. This was part of the goal of the writers’ strike of 2023 to ensure that writers had a say in how the AI was used by their companies. Convivial AI would require AI that is open-source so that anyone can download a model and adapt to their purposes.
If, for example, a film studio decides to lay off its writers and cartoonists and start using AI instead, it should be possible for said writers and cartoonists to download their own AI models, train them, and essentially become direct competitors to the studio. This would create a situation similar to robots in a worker owned factory where the AI becomes a tool for increasing productivity of white-collar workers and reducing their labor time instead of something that companies and studios use to replace white-collar workers. This would also provide a basis for democratic control of AI, potentially mitigating nightmare scenarios, such as a case where the majority of people are poor, while the few who control AI are extremely rich, or a scenario where a handful of governments and corporations use AI to create an AI superweapon.
The next technology is a home life-support system. In this case a life support system means the system necessary for humans to survive in an artificial habitat, like a space station or hermetically sealed dwelling. Life-support systems have been used for decades on space stations and spacecraft to recycle air and bodily waste to provide astronauts with oxygen, water, and other vitals. A terrestrial version of a life-system is Biosphere 2 in Tucson, AZ.
Life-support systems can be bio-regenerative, where plants and microbes are involved in recycling nutrients. They can also be physico-chemical, where machinery is recycling the nutrients. A bio-regenerative life-support system would help mitigate food insecurity issues so a family could control its food supply. This would also work for an apartment building in a big city, if the tenants of the building worked together to collectively use and maintain a building-wide life-support system. The life-support system, furthermore, could be powered by solar panels to provide its own source of energy. Since a bio-regenerative life support system would involve growing actual crops, it would mitigate a scenario where the poor eat tasteless nutrients and only the rich eat actual food.
Technological development that focuses on convivial technologies could be a cheaper source of economic development for both nations in the global south and for communities within wealthier countries that are economically depressed. Convivial technology has the potential to empower local communities and individuals in these regions to have more control over their direct situation than those living in countries that are already industrialized. We can create the cyberpunk world of Silicon Valley or we can create a solarpunk world through applying conviviality.
Caleb Strom is a planetary geoscientist. He also writes about science, faith, technology, their intersection, and how they can be used together to make a better world.
Image credit: techradar