On average technology has been overwhelmingly good. The GP is too vague, but what is the alternative to blind progress being proposed - some ethicist deciding what's good? When has that ever work out well? I'm pretty sure it has 100% track record of failure, I don't believe modern ethicists will do any better than luddites, inquisition, or Paul Elrich just because they have better manners. In fact I think less of a bioethicist than of an inquisitor, at least the latter had general ignorance as an excuse.
I, personally, think "techno-utopianists" don't go far enough. The contributions of some supposed non-technological progress - even to an extent of the institutional progress, but especially of some supposed cultural/ethical values improving, etc. - is overrated. Ultimately, it's all downstream of technology - only the technology enables the complex economy of abundance, and combined they allow good institutions to propagate. Even modern societies, as soon as they become poor, quickly start losing a veneer of "ethical progress". And we don't even usually see actual technological degradation.
