Technology is nothing. What's important is that you have a faith

Host: The night hung over Silicon Valley like a suspended heartbeat — a fragile stillness before another technological storm. Inside a small garage, dim fluorescent lights flickered over half-assembled circuit boards, coffee-stained papers, and the faint hum of a 3D printer left running too long. The air smelled of solder and rain, a mix of human effort and electric promise.

Jack sat by the workbench, his hands stained with ink and grease, grey eyes reflecting the glow of the monitor. Jeeny leaned against the doorframe, her long black hair shimmering with raindrops, a faint smile curving beneath her tired eyes.

Jeeny: “Steve Jobs once said, ‘Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have faith in people… if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.’”
(she moves closer, tracing the edge of a circuit board)
“Do you still believe that, Jack?”

Jack: (dryly) “Faith in people? Not really. I believe in systems, structures, designs — not in the myth of human goodness. Technology works because it’s built to be predictable. People… they’re not.”

Host: A brief pause filled the room, the kind that makes every sound sharper — the drip of rain from a pipe, the soft crackle of electricity.

Jeeny: “Predictability isn’t the measure of worth. When Jobs said that, he meant trust — that if you hand someone a tool, not a cage, they’ll build something beautiful. Think of the internet’s early days — it was chaos, but also creation. People built communities, knowledge, connection.”

Jack: (snorts softly) “And now? Those same tools have become weapons. Misinformation, surveillance, addiction — all handcrafted by ‘wonderful’ people with the best intentions. Facebook started with connection, remember? Now it divides. The internet didn’t make us better; it exposed what we already were.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes darkened. The rain began to beat harder against the garage window, turning the light into fractured streaks. Jack’s voice was steady, but his hands trembled faintly, betraying an unspoken exhaustion.

Jeeny: “But Jack, that’s precisely why we need faith. Technology without trust becomes a mirror of fear. When we stop believing in the good, we only design for control. Look at how Jobs built Apple — not just for profit, but for empowerment. He gave people the means to create — musicians, designers, dreamers. The Macintosh wasn’t built for corporations; it was built for humans.”

Jack: “Humans, yes — humans who then used those same machines to chase vanity metrics and stock prices. Jeeny, we’ve built tools that outgrow us. AI, automation — they don’t care about wonder or faith. They optimize. That’s their religion. You can’t preach human goodness to an algorithm.”

Jeeny: “But algorithms come from people. They reflect their makers’ hearts. That’s why faith matters — because behind every line of code, there’s a moral choice. You can make an algorithm that manipulates emotions… or one that saves lives. Look at AI in medicine — diagnosing cancer, predicting heart disease. Isn’t that wonderful?”

Host: Jack stood, pacing near the window, his reflection fractured by raindrops. His voice softened but stayed edged with bitterness.

Jack: “Sure. But for every life saved, a thousand jobs vanish to automation. Every algorithm that heals another one exploits. The balance isn’t moral, it’s economic. People use tools for what they want, not what they should. Jobs might’ve had faith, but faith doesn’t scale.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe we’ve stopped scaling the right things. We measure growth in profits, not compassion. Look at Wikipedia — millions of people contribute for free, building knowledge not for gain, but for the joy of giving. Isn’t that proof that people, when trusted, do wonderful things?”

Host: Her voice carried warmth, like light through fog. Jack turned back toward her, his jaw tense, his eyes reflecting a war between belief and fatigue.

Jack: “Wikipedia is the exception, not the rule. Most people won’t act selflessly without reward. Jobs’ faith sounds poetic, but it’s naive. The same tools that make Wikipedia possible also power scams, propaganda, deepfakes. You can’t have creation without destruction.”

Jeeny: “But that’s what makes faith powerful — it’s not about certainty, it’s about choice. You choose to believe even when the evidence doesn’t guarantee the outcome. That’s what Jobs understood. He built not because he trusted perfection, but because he trusted potential.”

Host: The rain eased, a distant rumble of thunder fading into the horizon. A shaft of light from a streetlamp slipped through the cracked blinds, painting gold across Jeeny’s face.

Jack: “Potential without boundaries leads to chaos. You can’t give people infinite tools and expect them to do only good. Power needs restraint. That’s why we have laws, ethics, systems. Without them, faith turns into delusion.”

Jeeny: “And yet, Jack, restraint without faith becomes tyranny. If we design every tool around fear of misuse, we’ll end up suffocating the very creativity that makes us human. Do you really want to live in a world where every invention is preemptively caged?”

Jack: (quietly) “Sometimes cages keep monsters in.”

Host: The air thickened. The hum of the printer stopped, leaving an unnatural silence. Jeeny’s eyes glistened, not with anger but with sorrow.

Jeeny: “Maybe. But sometimes those ‘monsters’ are just people who were never given a chance to build something good. Faith isn’t blind, Jack. It’s brave.”

Jack: “And what happens when that faith is betrayed? When people use those tools to hurt others — like the Cambridge Analytica scandal, manipulating elections with data harvested from dreams of connection?”

Jeeny: “Then we learn. We fix. We evolve. Isn’t that what being human means — the capacity to fall and still believe in tomorrow? Without that, we’re just machines chasing precision, not purpose.”

Host: Jack stared at her, the tension in his shoulders loosening slightly. The lamp’s light caught the faint scar along his wrist, a small reminder of sleepless nights spent building, breaking, rebuilding.

Jack: “You always make it sound so simple.”

Jeeny: “It’s not simple. It’s sacred.”

Host: A long silence stretched between them. Outside, the rain had stopped entirely. The garage was filled with the faint scent of ozone and hope.

Jack: “Maybe Jobs was right. Maybe it’s not about technology at all. Maybe it’s about… us. About whether we deserve the tools we build.”

Jeeny: “We always deserve the chance, Jack. Not because we’re perfect — but because we’re trying.”

Host: Jack looked at her then, really looked — at the tired eyes, the steady conviction, the soft defiance. He exhaled, a small smile cracking through the weight of cynicism.

Jack: “You think people can still do wonderful things?”

Jeeny: “I know they can. Every day, somewhere, someone is using a tool not to control, but to heal. That’s enough for me.”

Host: Jack reached over, picked up a small circuit board, and turned it in his hands — its lines, its patterns, its quiet potential. He placed it gently on the table between them.

Jack: “Then maybe the only thing left is to keep building — and hope we build with the right hearts.”

Jeeny: (softly) “That’s faith, Jack.”

Host: The lights flickered once more, then steadied. Outside, the storm clouds parted, revealing a faint silver moon over the hills. The world, broken and beautiful, waited — a vast circuit waiting for another human spark.

And in that garage, between the hum of silence and the whisper of faith, two souls — one of logic, one of belief — sat side by side, surrounded by tools, and a quiet, trembling wonder at what people might still create.