Günther Anders’s “Promethean Shame”: Technological Ressentiment and Surveillance

Günther Anders’s philosophy of technology, particularly his complex notion of ‘Promethean shame,’ or technological ressentiment, may illuminate questions of surveillance and AI ethics. As a critical philosopher of technology, radically so, his emphasis on the negative or downside of technology distinguishes Anders’s thinking on technology from future-focused and mainstream technological messianism. Key to Anders’s notion of ‘Promethean shame’ was his observation that we adapt ourselves to our technology, not the other way around. Provocatively, Anders argued that while the populace in the past—referring to Nazi Germany—required the techniques of mass psychology and mass gatherings for the purposes of manipulation and control, today we do this work on ourselves, in our own time, in our own space, on devices and subscriptions we pay for. As we actively ‘program’ ourselves in an ongoing digital practice, constantly and in real-time, we provide the means for our own surveillance.