Yeah, I misspoke "argument". It's odd that he doesn't actually articulate the "increasing returns" argument. It's that better technology enables you to see and do better (smaller, larger, faster, purer; whatever your trajectory). Knowing more gives you awareness of more avenues; more people (population) working on it (not needed for the basics of food, shelter etc) enables exploration of those avenues. But most of all, better technology, tools, methods give faster iteration. Because trial-and-error is how we explore unknowns.

Of course, all of that is about discovery - and pre-conditioned on there being something useful to discover. Whether there is or not is necessarily a matter of faith... since, by definition, we don't know. Historicaly it's turned out that way, but rephrasing you, past performance is no guarantee of future performance.

Personally, I see Chaitin's work as showing that there is infinite pattern; and with infinity, some of it is bound to be useful. It's a matter of finding it.

Of course, in the present case we already have a proof by existence that better technology is there to be discovered: you.