Technology is used for epistemological purposes all around us: cameras are placed in strategic locations to capture images and videos, odometers are used to measure the miles driven by everyday vehicles, and clocks are used to measure time. The epistemological validity of technological sensors and devices seems to be taken for granted by the world at large, just another assumption in many contemporary societies held to fiercely but without basis. Any example of using technology to gather information about the external world or the passage of time (which is distinct from the natural world) still falls due to the same philosophical truths about epistemology. If something does not logically follow from a concept or truth, it is by necessity unproven, perhaps even unprovable, or simply false, and it does not logically follow from technology recording information that the information is true.
Can a remote camera feed prove that what is shown on the screen corresponds to what is actually happening in the external world? Can a microscope prove the existence of miniscule bacterial life when looking at and speaking with other humans does not even prove that they exist beyond one's perceptions? Can a year-old audio or video recording prove that the universe was not created a mere half hour ago? The answer to each of these questions and many others is not an affirmative one, for technology cannot rescue humans from epistemological limitations that are part of the inherent nature of human existence, even as it rescues humans from physiological and health limitations that would otherwise be insurmountable from effort alone.
This might be one of the most difficult things for many people to accept about technology. After all, technology is supposed to make our lives more convenient, safe, and manageable--and it does accomplish these goals. However, these goals are all of a practical nature, having nothing to do with anything more than making life easier for people who largely have no concern for matters of truth that far exceed the scope of practical matters, even though explicitly abstract, philosophical truths underpin every aspect of the most mundane deeds. Mechanical and electronic types of technology do open up new avenues of performing certain tasks or gathering additional sensory information that might otherwise remain out of reach, but not even the most powerful sensors or most sophisticated devices have epistemological authority.
Technology cannot even prove that technology itself exists, as devices like telescopes, cameras, and all other kinds of sensors or observational inventions would all be part of the very physical world that visual sensory perceptions cannot verify the true nature of! One can prove that one has a physical body in a very particular way that most people seem to have overlooked completely throughout history [1], but it is impossible to prove any premise from which it follows that a specific technological marvel that one holds, looks at, or otherwise perceives is actually a part of the external world. At most, technology artificially extends the amount of perception-based information by allowing observational access to areas or things that have the same epistemological nature as more conventional objects.
The truth about the epistemology of technology and the external world as a whole is that the senses, beyond the aforementioned sole way to prove that an external world even exists at all, illuminate nothing except the passive perceptions of sight, sound, and other stimuli. There is no guarantee whatsoever that those perceptions match the true external world, which means that belief that they do match the external world as it is amounts to mere stupidity rooted in bias or ignorance. A person with basic human limitations can assume that their senses relay accurate information about outside stimuli, but many kinds of stimuli--that is, visual, aural, and olfactory stimuli specifically--cannot even be proven to exist outside of mental experiences! A rationalist will thus not believe that these particular categories of perceptions are bridges to the external world, and that has ramifications for how technology is understood.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/08/matter-is-not-illusion.html
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