The system is not sustainable, for three reasons:
First: all the tecnological promises go with the assumption
that we keep increasing our consumtion of ressources.
Metallic, non re-newable and more and more rare ressources.
We are rapidly consuming the periodic table,
the chemical elements.
We are moving away from a circular economy.
Because the products that we consume
contain more and more electronics,
more and more assembled materials
that are difficult to recycle.
We have over 20 metals, of which globally only 1% is recycled.
That means we are not reaching the much talked about circular economy.
The second reason is the systemic or global effect
that means:
There are tecnologies that solve a specific problem
typically things like electric cars.
But in doing so they produce even bigger problems
because of ressource depletion or other ecological impacts.
If we know for example, that autonomous cars
produce 4000 Gigabytes of data every day,
if they drive for 1 1/2 hours.
We would have to multiply todays global internet traffic times 1000
to have one billion autonomous cars.
The ecological impacts of global digitalisation
are very important already at present, and this is not sustainable.
The third aspect that I think is problematic
about the dream of a high tech society
that does have planetary boundaries
is the problem of the rebound effect:
The whole history of technology shows,
that every time there is some progress in terms of efficiency
be it vehicles, objects, or services,
that consumed less energy and resources,
ressources were not saved, in fact the consumption grew!
E.g. the aviation, where better engines allowed for cheap flights,
or with car sharing, wich just let to more travelling.
Or in the case of digitalization, where
consumption doubles every 18 or 24 months.
We do not earn the fruits of technological progress.
On the contrary: we continue on a road
that is exponentially divergent.
At what scale are we not sustainable:
ON a global scale there is this imperfect indicator
of the "ecological footprint",
when it's about the planet.
In western states, like western Europe,
3 to 4 times too much energy is consumed
and perhaps 10 times too much ressources
for us to be able to say it's sustainable.