Through the Lens of Jacques Ellul: The Digital Man and Due Diligence

By Farid Azimi

This blog post was written as part of the Cyberjustice Laboratory Summer School.

During a conference titled “Approche critique du technique: Ellul et le système technicien”, organized by the Chaire L.R. Wilson in April 2025 at Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law, Professor Vincent Gautrais and Matteo Treleani questioned the relevance of Jacques Ellul’s critical philosophy of technique and examined how Ellul’s 20th-century reflections resonate with the legal and societal challenges of modern technology.

Jacques Ellul, a French philosopher and sociologist, foresaw the dangers of a society increasingly shaped by autonomous technological systems. Ellul is best known for his foundational trilogy on technology, beginning with The Technological Society (1954), in which he lays out his core concept of technique. For Ellul, technique is not merely a tool or a collection of methods but a self-perpetuating force that advances based on efficiency alone, independent of ethical or human consideration. In fact, the word technology comes from two Greek

Image générée par Sora.

words, techne, meaning art, craft and skill, and logos, meaning word, discourse or reason. Combined, technology represents the discourse of technique and how things are gained, or in other words, how craft and skill are improved to achieve maximum efficiency. Moore’s Law reflects this quest for efficiency and observes that the number of transistors on a microchip doubles approximately every two years and exponentially increases computing power, proving the incessant desire of technological progress where improvement is possible.

Ellul argued that once a technology becomes possible, it inevitably becomes realized and adopted, often before society can reflect on its implications and ethical considerations. This « autonomy of technique » leads to a systemic transformation of society, where technological progress dictates social norms, economic priorities, and even political direction as techniques accumulate and evolve based on their efficiency alone. Ellul saw this evolution as both inevitable and dangerous, as it reduces human freedom and moral values. Technique escapes human control and operates according to its own internal logic of efficiency and self-perpetuation. As such, society adapts to technology, rather than vice versa.Prévisualiser (ouvre un nouvel onglet)

Ellul’s critique emerged in a world deeply marked by the nuclear threat. The nuclear man was a symbol for the human condition under the fear of destructive technologies at the height of the Cold War. The nuclear man lived with the constant existential threat of nuclear annihilation from technological advancements far beyond his moral, political or democratic control. In fact, the arms race proved Ellul’s theory that once technique is properly developed, it escapes human governance and does not take the time to properly question itself on its moral objectives and legitimate use.

Today, the digital man faces a different but equally profound burden. Artificial intelligence and digital technologies shape economies, democracies, and social relations. Data has become a primary asset in a society increasingly dependant on information. The digital man is deeply embedded within this technology and is not merely a passive observer of diplomatic relations and geopolitics, but rather an active participant and actor propagating these tools in his daily life:

Actors in the information society are not a homogenous population. In source literature one can encounter many different typologies of social groups participating in this new society. […] The typology goes as follows:

• people, who treat the net as a tool of communication, thus will be using it for dialogue,
• social groups, for whom the net is the means of communication with the services of other subjects, so for them it is a tool enabling access to offered resources,
• individuals, for whom the net is area of their diverse activities, within which they pursue their own goals. […]
• Techno-elites- people that use internet to fulfil their professional tasks. These people believe that scientific and technological progresses are key elements in humanities’ development. Such an exemplary group are scientists, who by the means of the internet, pursue their scientific careers. The Internet enables them access to intellectual work of others as well as popularization of fruits of their own work;
• Hackers1 – in this group we can find computer experts, programmers, who posses specialised skills for creating the net. Their strategic goal is to make contents of the net accessible at least for themselves
• Virtual communitarians- people, for whom the internet is a place for social interactions. The Internet is a tool for creating social structures (virtual societies) based on dialogue;
• Entrepreneurs- for them the internet is a place for running business activities. These people are creative within their businesses but not towards the internet.

Each of presented groups has its own goals, which are to be achieved by use of the internet.

Like nuclear technology, AI and digital systems represent technological advances that far surpass individual comprehension or control. In both cases, humanity is dwarfed by the scale of its own creations. Where the nuclear man faced collective extinction, the digital man faces social fragmentation, identity commodification, and the erosion of autonomy in the face of systems of surveillance and algorithmic decision-making.

Ellul lived long enough to witness the early stages of the digital age, and while his work focused largely on earlier technologies, he remained critical of the rise of computerization and predicted the emergence of new forms of domination through information systems. For Ellul, both the nuclear and digital ages are symptoms of the same condition: a society governed by technical efficiency rather than values or deliberation. The ethical parallel between the nuclear man and the digital man persists as both must inhabit a world shaped by human-made technologies capable of incredible power. Of course, the distinction remains that the nuclear weapons are in the hands of State authorities and is covered by a multiplicity of international norms and conventions, such as the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) with aim control the use of weapons of mass destruction.

In contrast, AI proliferation lacks such governance. Tools like generative AI, surveillance algorithms, and autonomous systems can cross borders easily and be installed locally for private use. Although States still bear responsibility to regulate and collaborate on proper governance measures for the cyberspace and AI, it becomes very difficult to install a uniform framework across the world without affecting fundamental rights to liberty. While the EU has taken the lead with instruments like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the AI Act, countries like Canada are still lacking in establishing proper regulatory mechanisms for AI.

Similarly as the nuclear age, the digital man must adapt and prompt a revaluation of responsibility, trust, and accountability in this medium. In The Technological Society, Ellul explains that modern civilization is governed by the constant quest for technique and efficiency. Technological innovation, in all domains combined, is the principal driver of historical movements since the industrial revolution and has surpassed traditional innovation like religion, culture and even the law. In fact, cyberjustice experts are themselves deeply embedded in the technological systems they seek to integrate with the legal institution. However, similar to the digital man, lawyers in the field of technology of information are themselves victims of technique caught in a system that evolves faster than ethical considerations can be posed. For example, “digital resurrection” is a growing commercial service leveraging AI systems to recreate a person’s likeness, persona and behaviours using the data left behind by the deceased and through extensive amounts information collected from Big Data practices, effectively creating a digital clone.

Thus, technological development in law does not necessarily occur in response to justice-driven principles, but because they are technically possible. According to Jacques Ellul’s philosophy, adoption of a new technique becomes inevitable once it emerges, not because it aligns with a legal or ethical imperative, but simply because it can be done. The criterion shifts from normative justification of access to justice to technical feasibility. In the context of law, this means digital court systems, AI-assisted legal research, predictive systems, and open judicial data platforms are introduced, not necessarily to enhance justice or fairness, but because the digital infrastructure now exists to support them.

This means that the change in medium to a digital legal infrastructure is reactive rather than reflective. For example, courts adopt digital systems to keep pace with innovations, legal databases grow in complexity to accommodate to Big Data, and jurists rely on machine learning tools for efficiency rather than deeper human judgment. The justice system begins to follow the self-perpetuating force of technology by favoring speed, automation, and datafication, rather than fairness, deliberation, and human dignity. As a result, law risks becoming subordinated to the rhythm of technological change to be less guided by principled debate and more by market-driven innovation and administrative convenience. Ellul warns that when society blindly embraces technology without critically assessing if it is morally desirable, freedom is lost through efficiency.

Therefore, in the digital age, the challenge for cyberjustice is not simply how to incorporate new tools, but how to discern when not to. Legal experts for digital integration must wonder if these technologies enhance justice or merely streamline procedure and shifts power to algorithms. As such, the field of cyberjustice must adopt an extra task: to predict and prevent mutations of the law in the digital sphere, such as immersive technologies for example. The digital transformation of information radically reshapes the foundations and legitimacy of law, as State institutions have lost their monopoly on rule-making with digital giants (GAMAM) influencing legal norms in a borderless cyberspace,

Gautrais’ analysis concludes with the idea that digital tools require individual discernment. With the absence of an international authority to govern all digital tools, the digital man has a responsibility of due diligence and must consider the impacts of data privacy and ethical use of new technology. Ellul emphasized the need for a moral stance towards technology and to draw limits through foresight and precaution. This ethical burden is enshrined in professional codes of conduct. For instance, Article 21 of the Quebec Code of Professional Conduct of Lawyers reminds the ethical obligation of lawyers to be knowledgeable of information technologies used within the scope of their professional activities. However, in respect to Ellul’s vision, this responsibility cannot stop at regulated professions and must extend to every actor in the digital society. Whether the doctor using AI to discern symptoms, the artist using generative audio software, or the student summarizing lectures, the digital man must absolutely ensure due diligence and recognize the ethical implications of their interactions with data and algorithms.

An important societal mutation from the technological saturation is the revolt of the digital. What happens when an individual does not want to be a digital man? Is it possible to truly be “offline”? Just as the nuclear age gave birth to anti-nuclear activism, conscientious objection, and existential dread, the digital age is witnessing the rise of digital exclusion and digital anarchism as a broader cultural movement that rejects digital dependency. People uninstall social media, refuse smartphones, or attempt to live off the grid out of critique of technology. Ellul warned that such resistance is inevitable in a system where technology replaces meaning with function. Interestingly, Jacques Ellul’s work heavily influenced Ted Kaczynski, also known as The Unabomber, who echoed fears about the autonomy of technique and technology and the dehumanization it imposes in his manifesto The Industrial Society and Its Future.

To conclude, the digital man must be an active moral agent practicing due diligence in every click and every piece of information he consumes and shares through technological innovations. In the face of today’s digital transformation, cyberjustice experts must remain careful in balancing new tech with judiciary institutions by carefully deliberating the advantages of digital tools and adapting to future mutations that the digital integration will cause on the law.

Ce contenu a été mis à jour le 22 août 2025 à 11 h 51 min.