Abstract

The contribution – inspired by Edward Morgan Forster’s dystopian short story The Machine Stops, a reversed ‘myth of the cave’ in which humans voluntarily regress to epistemic automatism – aims to analyse the current relationship between humans and technology by linking the thinking of philosopher Bernard Stiegler with recent studies that have analysed the psycho-cognitive approach of humans towards artificial intelligence systems. Starting from the concepts of the grammatisation of technology and epiphylogenesis, according to which, according to the French philosopher, humanity is undergoing a process of cognitive proletarianisation, we will examine whether the current condition can be reversed through a pharmacological approach or whether we have already embarked on a slippery slope.