To me, the first quote "Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal" means that the technology made by human has actually turned out to be a dangerous tool that can kill us off - by a pathological criminal, meaning the pathological human, ourselves.
This is a fairly bleak assessment on the part of Einstein. I hope that he wrote this when he was in a particularly off moment, and that he also saw reason for greater optimism at other times.
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