This idea frequently creates in the people who believe in it a positivistic and optimistic, and sometimes even somewhat idealistic world view.
Technological enlightenment is therefore in no way a new recent fad.
Neither is technological enlightenment an obsolete 18th century concept. Enlightenment was an interesting cultural phenomenon, but by stressing the idealistic sides of it, such as e.g. the idealism that scientific inquiry should benefit all mankind, 18th century idealistic Enlightenment went beyond the purely minimalistically practical. And anything that goes beyond the purely minimalistically practical immediately thereby, in a sense, is idealistically religious. Yes, I think it is. People when using a hammer generally don't have to have ideological ideas in their minds about big resounding humanistic idealistic goals attached to the tool itself.