"Beware of first-hand ideas": foretelling the existential risk of technology deification and dependence through Forster's narrative lens

In a world increasingly ensnared by technology, Forster's 'The Machine Stops' serves as a prescient warning against perils of technology deification and dependence. Portrayal of a technology-ensnared society echoes panopticism, where internalizing surveillance shapes thought. Socially isolated residents in the story mirror Foucault's notion of panopticism by policing themselves in solitude, thus waning empowerment at the cost of sacrificing autonomy. Through projecting a world where humanity, shackled by its creations, becomes complicit in its subjugation, the perils of a gradual descent into dependence mirrors contemporary anxieties about unchecked tech proliferation when technology, helmed by Artificial Intelligence (AI), is increasingly accused of autocratically crossing barriers into the microcosm of people. The dichotomy between central characters in the story underscores the importance of preserving individual critical thinking ability, endangered of eroding in the face of the onslaught of technological hegemony, as a route to prevent subservience to a deity of humanity's own procurement, rendering them technology-driven entities incapable of survival beyond its purview, upholding the need for inclusive and adaptive policies which enable AI to be used as a tool as opposed to a substitute for human abilities.