219 works selected for the 40 candidate questions. Selections approved by Ben Breen, 29 September 2026. Arguments are unverified. Quotations were chosen by machine and are unchecked.
8 of 219 works
1909ForsterForster,The Machine StopsEnglishFictionFull text
- Q14Would machines becoming more capable than humans necessarily place humans in a subordinate position?
Yes. Depicts a humanity that lives underground wholly dependent on and worshipping a Machine, which collapses and kills them.
- Q25Does relying on machinery for ordinary necessities reduce people's ability to provide for themselves?
Yes. Kuno says the Machine has robbed people of spatial and tactile capacities, weakened relationships, paralyzed bodies and wills, and compelled worship. This is his speech, not the later narrated collapse.
- Q31Can reliance on machinery become a form of idolatry?
Yes. People consult the Book of the Machine as scripture and come to worship the Machine that serves them.
- Q14Would machines becoming more capable than humans necessarily place humans in a subordinate position?
1914WellsWells,The World Set FreeEnglishFictionFull text
- Q26Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?
Yes. The narrator describes Holsten’s fear of his discovery’s consequences and his thought that publication might be premature. His later disclaimer of unforeseeable consequences is a separate passage.
- Q26Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?
1918BaumBaum,The Tin Woodman of OzEnglishFictionFull text
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
Contested. The Tin Woodman, whose flesh was replaced piece by piece with tin, meets his old living head, which denies that the tin man is the same person.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
1920ČapekČapek,R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)CzechFictionFull text
Karel Čapek
R.U.R. (Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti)
Czech · Fiction
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q14Would machines becoming more capable than humans necessarily place humans in a subordinate position?
Yes. Robots built to free humans from labour outnumber them, revolt and exterminate them.
- Q28Would the capacity to suffer give an artificial being a claim to humane treatment?
Both. Dr Gall adds pain nerves to the Robots only so they will not damage themselves; asked if they will be happier, he says no, only more perfect technically, while Helena's Humanity League campaigns for them.
- Q29Would creating an intelligent being give its maker the right to own it?
Both. Robots are manufactured and sold by a company as products; the play ends with their revolt against their makers.
- Q14Would machines becoming more capable than humans necessarily place humans in a subordinate position?
1924ČapekČapek,KrakatitCzechFictionFull text
- Q26Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?
Yes. In the final chapter, the old man whom Prokop recognizes as God urges him to abandon destructive work and start again with useful energy. This makes responsibility an obligation to redirect invention; it is not a legal rule about every unintended harm. Quoted from Lawrence Hyde’s 1925 English translation of the 1924 Czech novel.
- Q26Can inventors remain responsible for harmful uses of their inventions that they did not intend?
1924ZamyatinZamyatin,WeRussianFictionFull text
- Q22Does organizing daily life by fixed schedules strengthen or weaken self-government?
Weakens. The narrator praises the Tables of Hours that fix when everyone rises, works, eats and walks, and hopes to absorb even the two personal hours; the novel shows this as the end of freedom.
- Q22Does organizing daily life by fixed schedules strengthen or weaken self-government?
1925BelyaevBelyaev,Professor Dowell's HeadRussianFictionFull text
Alexander Belyaev
Голова профессора Доуэля
Russian · Fiction
Full text · No English translation
Open source →- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
Yes. A scientist's severed head is kept alive by machines and remains himself, thinking and suffering, without a body.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
1931JonesJones,The Jameson SatelliteEnglishFictionFull text
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?
Yes. Aliens place a dead professor's preserved brain in a mechanical body and he continues as himself.
- Q16Would replacing bodily organs with artificial substitutes preserve the identity of the person?