image: Cover art to Greg Epstein's "Tech Agnostic."
Credit: The MIT Press, 2024.
For Immediate Release
Today's technology has overtaken religion as the chief influence on twenty-first century life and community. In Tech Agnostic, Harvard and MIT's influential humanist chaplain Greg Epstein explores what it means to be a critical thinker with respect to this new faith. Encouraging readers to reassert their common humanity beyond the seductive sheen of “tech,” this book argues for tech agnosticism—not worship—as a way of life. Without suggesting we return to a mythical pre-tech past, Epstein shows why we must maintain a freethinking critical perspective toward innovation until it proves itself worthy of our faith or not.
Epstein asks probing questions that center humanity at the heart of engineering: Who profits from an uncritical faith in technology? How can we remedy technology's problems while retaining its benefits? Showing how unbelief has always served humanity, Epstein revisits the historical apostates, skeptics, mystics, Cassandras, heretics, and whistleblowers who embody the tech reformation we desperately need. He argues that we must learn how to collectively demand that technology serve our pursuit of human lives that are deeply worth living.
In our tumultuous era of religious extremism and rampant capitalism, Tech Agnostic offers a new path forward, where we maintain enough critical distance to remember that all that glitters is not gold—nor is it God.
Greg M. Epstein serves as Humanist Chaplain at Harvard & MIT, where he advises students, faculty, and staff members on ethical and existential concerns from a humanist perspective. He was TechCrunch's first “ethicist in residence” and has been called “a symbol of the transition in how Americans relate to organized religion” (The Conversation). He is the author of the New York Times-bestselling book Good Without God and has also written for MIT Technology Review, CNN.com, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, and Newsweek.
Reviews
“A wide-ranging, provocative, and energetic deep dive into the role that technology plays in our lives.”
—Kirkus Reviews
"Epstein is not anti-technology. He’s not even a tech minimalist. But he hopes the book will help people navigate and evaluate tech’s promises...He hopes to provide readers with the confidence to be skeptical of magical claims from those selling social media, artificial intelligence, or cryptocurrency."
—The Boston Globe
"In his new book, Tech Agnostic, Greg Epstein explores the idea that “tech”, by which he means modern digital technology, is a new global religion, with messianic leaders, dutiful followers, daily rituals of worship, and an inescapable influence on all facets of life."
—The Observer/The Guardian
"Epstein spent the past several years examining the rising power of tech through the lens of faith and came away with the belief that tech is now 'the world’s most powerful religion' — and all of us its unwitting congregants. 'We need a reformation,' he argues."
—Politico
“[A] disturbing trend is exposed in Greg Epstein's Tech Agnostic. He argues that the major religion of our times is now to be found in the world of technology. His book acts as a warning and a means of discovering a way out.”
—The Bookseller
"Those interested in not only how tech has become a superimposed structure over our society, but also how something might be done about it, will find a lot to meditate on in this book."
—Shelf Awareness
"Greg M. Epstein, the humanist rabbi who serves as a chaplain at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has long focused on the ethical questions surrounding technology and our dependence on it. And his new book, Tech Agnostic, explores how our devotion to tech became a religious faith, what the implications of that belief are for the way we live today, and what a reformation might look like — a questioning, agnostic movement that might turn the powerful tools of technology to the service of humanity rather than capital."
—The Ink
Endorsements:
“Greg Epstein makes the best case yet for why we have to withhold our faith from technology before its values become the given circumstances of our reality. Just because you’re not programming these intelligences doesn’t mean they’re not programming you. There’s still time to retrieve and celebrate our shared humanity, together. This book points the way.”
—Douglas Rushkoff, author of Team Human, Survival of the Richest, and Present Shock
“The tech world needs to face up to how strange we have become. We have become religious without admitting it to ourselves. The book will help broaden perspectives. I urge anyone with influence in tech culture to read it.”
—Jaron Lanier, author of Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Account Right Now, Who Owns the Future, and You Are Not a Gadget
“An exciting intellectual adventure, Epstein’s ingenious book is sometimes deeply moving and vulnerable, occasionally chuckle-out-loud funny, and always insightful. This timely and urgently important meditation inspired me to completely rethink my relationship to technology.”
—Skye C. Cleary, author of How to Be Authentic
“If tech is a religion, then there is no better guide than Greg Epstein. Informed, honest, and deeply urgent, Tech Agnostic leads us straight to the source of Silicon Valley dogma and, crucially, back out again with reason to hope.”
—Lauren F. Klein, Winship Distinguished Research Professor, Emory University; coauthor of Data Feminism
“Tech Agnostic is a thought-provoking exploration of the challenges that our species faces in its uncertain new allegiance with tech. But it also delivers a hopeful path toward engaging more humanely. Eloquently written, Epstein’s book provides a thoughtful field guide for challenges and opportunities we face in our modern tech-obsessed world.”
—Laurie Santos, Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology and Head of Silliman College, Yale University; host of The Happiness Lab podcast
“Greg Epstein shines light on our very human tendency to find gods that we can worship, and he makes a powerful case for the hazards of doing this with tech. Written with warmth and wisdom, Tech Agnostic lays out an alternate path of humanism that keeps compassion at the heart of the digital revolution.”
—Robert Waldinger, Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Roshi (Zen Master), Living Vow Zen; coauthor of The Good Life
“Greg Epstein’s new barnburner of a book arrives at precisely the moment we need it most. Crisply written and insightful, Tech Agnostic offers a thoughtful way forward as we stare down the specter of AI.”
—Lee McIntyre, author of On Disinformation