CONCEPT
Autonomy of Technique
Ellul's most contested claim: that technique develops according to its own internal logic, producing effects that follow from its structure rather than from the intentions of those who build, deploy, or use it.
The autonomy of technique is not metaphysical but structural. Ellul did not claim that technique possesses consciousness or agency in the human sense. He claimed that its development follows a logic independent of human values — each stage creating the conditions and the demand for the next, with the trajectory governed by efficiency rather than by what any individual or institution chose. The hospital that adopts AI diagnostics did not vote that efficiency should be the primary criterion for patient care. The adoption was compelled by liability, competition, and measurement — forces that no single actor controls. Autonomy, in Ellul's precise sense, means that technique's trajectory cannot be altered by adjusting the intentions of its participants, because the trajectory is determined by the system's structure rather than by anyone's intentions.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The autonomy claim is what separates Ellul's analysis from conventional technology criticism. A critic who believes technology is a neutral tool argues