I see two errors here.
Defining technology to be "that thing which makes people's lives better" feels weak, even disingenuous, because trivially nuclear missiles and weaponised smallpox are technologies that fail your test.
Therefore, there exist technologies that can make peoples' lives worse.
The second issue is with your subjective "(people's lives getting better) doesn't appear to be slowing down to me". It's a view you're entitled to hold of course. Maybe you are not aware of other perspectives. It may have escaped your notice that in the last decade digital technologies have substantially changed in their nature. They've been at the centre of scandals over the erosion of democratic values, decline in education, attention disorders, social fragmentation, childhood depression, pollution and e-waste, conflict minerals, energy consumption, loss of privacy, dignity and rights... Must I go on?
To hold the idea that "all technologies naturally improve human life" by definition alone seems like a desperate escape from the facts.
Please don't. OK, I get it now. Your point above wasn't about "peak tech" at all[1], it was about this part, which you didn't mention. I think you're wrong, FWIW, but am not going to engage.
[1] In either the sense of "peak tech startup investment activity" or "technological progress as commonly undeerstood".
"Peak tech" is two words I just pulled out of my arse an hour ago.
Let's define it together.
For me it's a palpable sentiment not a definition. But some people here seem to "get it".
The "tech industry" is not just an activity, it's a culture. Many of us, including (particularly?) developers are increasingly fed-up and disappointed by the direction digital technology is going. Not because we dislike technology, but because of what a minority are doing with it to gain power and wealth to the detriment of everyone else.
I don't think things will change for those investors who are smart enough to see the writing on the wall and switch (as they are doing) to physical technologies. FWIW I love the startup mind-set.
But this cynical flogging of surveillance capitalism, screwing over users, social control and smartphone bandwagon has been sticking in people's throats way beyond this community for some time.
The pain and anxiety equals or outweighs the perceived benefits - not just to a few geeks - but to people like my parents, siblings and neighbours.
That's "peak tech" for me.
But to argue that technology as a whole has stopped is... well, not irrefutable, but almost certainly wrong. And if it's right, wow, is that bleak.
Constructed more naturally, your statement here:
> we need to make better, more humane and effective technology, not just more and more and more of it.
Is certainly true, but frankly is just a tautology. "Technology" as commonly understood means new stuff that makes people's lives better.