Günther Anders and Promethean Shame
Our Unease in the Shadow of Our Creations
Imagine you’re a pilot flying through dense fog. Years of training and finely honed instincts tell you one thing, but you’re told to ignore your gut feeling and trust the bank of instruments in front of you: the altimeters, gyroscopes, and radar. These tools, products of human ingenuity, are more accurate, more reliable, and ultimately more trusted than your own senses. In that moment, you, the human, become secondary to the machine.
This scenario, described by the German philosopher Günther Anders (1902-1992) in his 1956 book The Outdatedness of Human Beings, highlights a troubling idea: Promethean shame. This is the discomfort and humiliation we feel when our own inventions surpass us.1 Machines do things better and, in doing so, expose our growing obsolescence. Anders believed this was a central problem of modern life, affecting us not just technologically, but existentially, ethically, and emotionally.
The Roots of Promethean Shame
In the 1920s, Anders studied philosophy at the University of Freiburg, working with thinkers like Martin Heidegger and Edmund Husserl. He later married Hannah Arendt, another influential philosopher whom I’ve written about previously.2 Anders called himself a “critical theorist of technology” and was among the first to warn about technology’s growing influence, especially the impact of inventions like television.3
He coined the term “Promethean shame” to describe a paradox: we create powerful technologies, yet often feel inferior to our creations. Drawing from the myth of Prometheus, who stole fire from the gods to give to humans, Anders saw technological progress as a double-edged sword.4 The fire gives us power, but also casts a long shadow.
In the aftermath of World War II, as nuclear technology emerged, Anders warned about the “Promethean gap,” the growing distance between what we’re capable of producing and what we can truly understand, control, or respond to ethically. A pilot’s reliance on instruments, for example, shows how our senses, once crucial for survival, are now outmatched by machines. Our tools go beyond simply helping us; they outperform us, and we feel the gap.
But Promethean shame isn’t just about being outperformed. It’s a deeper feeling: a sense of existential humiliation, a recognition that we are being reshaped by the very tools we create. Anders warned that people are now adapting themselves to fit their machines, not the other way around. We value efficiency, precision, and automation, and change our behaviours, values, and emotions to fit the systems we’ve built. We even welcome our own “reification,” becoming “thing-like” or objectified, because of the perceived superiority of technology.5
Anders also went further. He feared that modern humans were not only becoming obsolete, but also numb to the dangers of our creations. He called this diagnosis the “inability to feel.” When we make weapons capable of mass destruction or dehumanising systems and feel no dread, awe, or moral concern, we lose not just control, but the imagination to see the risks.
Babette Babich’s Digital Reframing
American philosopher Babette Babich builds on Anders’ ideas in the digital age. In her 2021 book Günther Anders’ Philosophy of Technology, she argues that Promethean shame has grown in a world of algorithms, AI, and social media.6
Today, we carry technologies in our pockets that know more about us than we do. AI writes, paints, and predicts. Our phones and wearable tech track every move. We marvel at their power, but often feel inadequate in comparison. Babich oberves that we play an active role in this dynamic. We eagerly buy and upgrade the very tools that shape, monitor, and monetise us, participating in the process that transforms us.
Babich uses Heidegger’s idea of “enframing”—technology not just as a collection of tools, but as a way of revealing the world that frames everything (and everyone) as resources to optimise.7 On social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok, our role shifts from mere users to integral parts of their systems. These platforms present curated, hyper-visible realities while hiding complexity, slowness, and vulnerability. In this sense, the medium itself shapes our behaviour and even our sense of self. As the Candian philosopher and media theorist Marshall McLuhan famously put it, “the medium is the message.”8 It’s not just the content we consume, but the structure and logic of the platforms themselves that mould our habits, values, and relationships. We become performers, tailoring our lives to be machine-readable and optimised for algorithmic appeal, risking a slide into the machine-like.
Moreover, many of today’s technologies are “black boxes,” systems whose internal workings are so complex that even their creators cannot fully explain them.
This widens the Promethean gap. Our tools have become not only more capable but also increasingly unknowable, yet we continue to let them guide us. From Amazon recommendations, Google Maps, and predictive text to health apps, Spotify playlists, and LLMs like ChatGPT, these systems curate what we see, hear, and even create, leaving us both amazed and anxious.9
Philosopher Bernard Stiegler argued that such digital technologies profoundly reshape our memory and attention. He warned that when we outsource remembering, learning, and even feeling to algorithms, we risk losing not only individual skills but also the shared cultural memory that binds communities together. For Stiegler, the challenge is to reclaim our capacity for reflection and care in a world where our habits and desires are increasingly programmed by external systems.10
Just as the pilot trusts the dashboard, we trust metrics like shares, likes, and follower counts. We shape ourselves for the digital gaze, experiencing Promethean shame as existential performance anxiety: we compete with the machines and personas we’ve created. The Korean-German philosopher Byung-Chul Han describes this shift as moving from narrative storytellers around the campfire to performative storysellers of ourselves online.11
Han warns that in the digital age, genuine connection fades as we become trapped in cycles of self-exposure and optimisation. The “Other” refers to people who are truly different from us, those who challenge our assumptions and broaden our perspective. Over time, they gradually disappear from view. Instead, we find ourselves surrounded by digital mirrors, endlessly seeking approval from versions of ourselves rather than engaging with real difference.12 Our identities shrink to data points shaped by algorithms, deepening the Promethean gap as technology not only outperforms us but reshapes what it means to be human.
Shame by Design
This dynamic is very real and shows itself in the most mundane moments of daily life. Take your smartphone: a marvel of design and innovation, capable of connecting you globally. You might even be reading this essay on it now. But it’s also a source of distraction and anxiety. We feel uneasy when it’s out of reach and overwhelmed by constant updates. We know we’re being watched, but we perform anyway. We trust recommendations more than our own taste. AI finishes our messages and plans our days. The line between us and our machines blurs.
As AI tools surpass humans in certain tasks, we defer to them for insight and decisions. As you read this, you might even wonder if ChatGPT would have written it better. We assume machines know better than we do. Sometimes, they might. But when we let machines lead, not just in labour but judgement, we begin to question our own relevance. Anders warned that the most dangerous technologies are not those that destroy but those that erode our sense of purpose.
We rarely feel horror at this erosion. Anders argued we’re not numb because we’re stupid, but because we’re overwhelmed. In a world of frictionless convenience and algorithmic clarity, who has time to reflect?
Toward a New Prometheanism
Babich is not a pessimist. Like Anders, she doesn’t want us to despair. She urges us to reflect on how we live with technology. The goal isn’t to reject innovation, but to make sure it doesn’t redefine humanity without our say. Rather than abandon our tools, we should ask: Who do they serve? What values do they encode? What kind of lives do they make possible, or impossible?
She calls for designing technologies that prioritise human values like ambiguity, vulnerability, slowness, and embodiment, not just efficiency and profit. Ethical AI, data privacy reforms, and slow media movements are ways to close the Promethean gap. Most importantly, we need a renewed ethical sensitivity: the ability to feel what matters, and notice when our tools stop serving us and start shaping us.
Personally, despite these concerns, I can’t help but see the smartphone as one of the greatest inventions of my lifetime when used wisely. In my own experience, it’s an unparalleled tool for learning, connecting, and exploring new ideas. When harnessed thoughtfully, it empowers curiosity and creativity. The challenge, of course, is to use it for growth rather than distraction, and to remember that the device should serve me, not the other way around.
Rekindling the Fire
Promethean shame, as Anders conceived it and Babich reinterprets it, concerns more than machines alone. At it’s core, it raises questions about what kind of humans we become in relation to our creations. From cockpit dashboards to social media timelines, we live in a world increasingly governed by systems that surpass our understanding. But in our discomfort lies an opportunity for growth.
The fire Prometheus gave symbolised more than raw power; it represented possibility and the potential for transformation. If we reflect critically, learn to feel again, and act with care, the same flame that shames us can also illuminate a more human future, one where technology amplifies our values rather than erases them.
We’re not outdated, but at a crossroads. The next move is ours to make: we can be creators, not captives. We can build with wisdom, not just wonder. We can let the fire illuminate, not consume.
If you’re hardcore, you can watch Babich discuss Günther Anders and Promethean shame in more depth here:
Anders, G. (1956). The Obsolescence of Man (J. Monter Pérez, Trans.) Original work published 1956.
Hannah Arendt and the Art of Talking to Yourself: The Privilege of Solitude. Substack post.
This is an excellent timeline and biography of Anders’ life. You’ll need English translation on in your borwser.
In Greek mythology, Prometheus was a Titan famous for his intelligence and for being a champion of humanity. According to the myth, he defied the Olympian gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humans. This act enabled people to develop technology, knowledge, and civilisation. Prometheus is also sometimes credited with creating humanity from clay, shaping the first humans and giving them life with the help of the goddess Athena. His gift of fire symbolised enlightenment and progress, but it also angered Zeus, the king of the gods. As punishment, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock, where an eagle would eat his liver every day; his liver would regenerate each night, making his torment eternal. Eventually, the hero Heracles (Hercules) freed him. The myth also explains the origin of human suffering through the story of Pandora, the first woman, who was sent to humanity as part of Zeus’s punishment. When Pandora opened a jar (often called “Pandora’s box”), she released all the evils into the world, leaving only hope inside.
Babich, B. E. (2025). Günther Anders’s “Promethean Shame”: Technological Ressentiment and Surveillance. The Harvard Review of Philosophy, Volume XXXI, 75-97. https://research.library.fordham.edu/phil_babich/107/
Babich, B. E. (2022). Günther Anders’ philosophy of technology: From phenomenology to critical theory. Bloomsbury Academic.
Babich’s book offers the first comprehensive study of Günther Anders’s philosophy of technology, positioning him as a major, though often overlooked, figure in 20th-century thought. Babich situates Anders within the intellectual traditions of phenomenology and critical theory, drawing connections to thinkers such as Heidegger, Arendt, Benjamin, Adorno, and Agamben. Babich shows that Anders was ahead of his time in analysing the impact of mass media, digital technology, and artificial intelligence on human life. She argues that Anders’s reflections on radio, television, and film provide valuable resources for understanding today’s streaming media and digital platforms.
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) outlined his concept of “enframing” (Gestell) in his influential essay The Question Concerning Technology, first published in 1954. The term refers to the essence of modern technology as a mode of revealing that organises the world as a “standing reserve” of resources to be efficiently used and exploited. Rather than seeing technology as merely a neutral tool, Heidegger argues that enframing structures our way of being and understanding. It reduces all things, including people and nature, to objects available for use. This dominant technological worldview threatens to obscure other ways of revealing and relating to the world, limiting our capacity for authentic experience.
Marshall McLuhan’s (1911-1980) phrase “the medium is the message” (from his 1964 book Understanding Media) suggests that the characteristics of a medium, particularly how it structures communication and interaction, have a more profound impact on society than the actual content delivered. In the context of digital platforms, this means that the ways we interact online shape our identities and relationships as much as, if not more than, what we actually share or consume.
Torabi, N. (2023). The Inner Workings of Spotify’s AI-Powered Music Recommendations: How Spotify Shapes Your Playlist. Medium article.
Bernard Stiegler (1952-2020) developed these ideas in Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus (1994), where he explores how human memory and experience are fundamentally shaped by “tertiary memory”—the externalisation of memory through tools and technologies. He warns that digital technologies, by taking over functions like remembering, attention, and decision-making, risk causing a “proletarianisation” of the mind—a loss of individual and collective capacity for reflection and care. Stiegler argues that this creates a crisis of cultural memory and human agency, challenging us to reclaim responsibility for how we engage with and design technology.
The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han review – how big tech altered the narrative. Guardian article.
In his book The Disappearance of Rituals (2020) Han describes the “disappearance of the Other” as a defining feature of digital culture. In his view, the digital age, while seemingly connecting us to more people than ever, paradoxically erodes genuine otherness and difference. Social media and algorithmic feeds surround us with “likes” and opinions that mirror our own, creating echo chambers that flatten perspectives and hinder authentic connection. Instead of encountering the Other, someone who challenges, surprises, or unsettles us, we are increasingly confronted with reflections of ourselves, fostering narcissism and self-absorption. Han warns that this loss of alterity diminishes empathy, critical thought, and the richness of human interaction, as digital communication becomes more about self-exposure and validation than meaningful engagement with real difference.