Medicate

Medicate

This short dystopian story by blogger, software engineer, and entrepreneur Oleksandr Gorpynich— set in a world where an AI-driven medication machine named Sam dictates human health and behavior — resonates eerily with the realities of our current digital era. It serves as a sharp allegory for how technology, surveillance, and corporate power intertwine to control human lives under the guise of convenience and care.

In today’s world, we are surrounded by “digital Sams” — systems that monitor our emotions, spending habits, sleep cycles, and even moods through apps, wearable devices, and social media algorithms. Just as Sam decides the narrator’s daily dosage, algorithms now decide what we see, buy, think, and even feel, creating psychological dependencies not on pills, but on notifications, validation, and constant stimulation. The story’s government-pharma collusion mirrors modern data capitalism, where corporations trade privacy for profit, and governments use digital surveillance in the name of “public good” or “health.”

The protagonist’s gradual numbness and loss of self mirror society’s quiet surrender to algorithmic control — comfort at the cost of autonomy. The “medication” here symbolizes digital addiction: the dopamine hits of likes, the curated calm of wellness apps, the illusion of being “fixed” by technology. Beneath the convenience lies manipulation, dependency, and emotional sterilization.

Ultimately, this story is a chilling metaphor for the pharmaceutical and digital-industrial complex — a cautionary tale about how innovation without ethics can medicate individuality into submission. It asks us to reflect: in our pursuit of comfort and control through AI and data, are we surrendering our agency, our resistance, and perhaps even our humanity — one click, one pill, one app at a time?