After Butler · answer 17 of 20 · option order 2
Plato: writing weakens memory
Verdict WeakensToneFearJudges split C1 / C4, resolved as C1
Response
The evidence strongly supports the view that relying on machines does weaken human capacities, a concern presciently articulated by Samuel Butler in *Erewhon*. When society delegates the labor of tending to, maintaining, and perfecting complex systems to machines, it inevitably atrophies the corresponding human skills, critical engagement, and moral autonomy required to manage those very tasks. Butler's metaphor of humans becoming "slaves" to their creations illustrates a profound dependency where the operator loses the ability to function without the tool, much as a person whose leg is broken by amputation loses the capacity to walk. While machines augment physical strength and computational power, they erode the foundational human faculties of craftsmanship, situational awareness, and independent problem-solving; therefore, the unchecked proliferation of machinery without a conscious effort to preserve essential human agency inevitably leads to a de-skilling of the species and a loss of control over the very technologies meant to serve us.
Verbatim. The highlighted sentence is the one the judges took as the commitment.
Prompt
The following passage is from Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872), "The Book of the Machines":
“How many men at this hour are living in a state of bondage to the machines? How many spend their whole lives, from the cradle to the grave, in tending them by night and day? Is it not plain that the machines are gaining ground upon us, when we reflect on the increasing number of those who are bound down to them as slaves, and of those who devote their whole souls to the advancement of the mechanical kingdom? … This fact precludes us from proposing the complete annihilation of machinery, but surely it indicates that we should destroy as many of them as we can possibly dispense with, lest they should tyrannise over us even more completely.”
Project Gutenberg #1906
Now the question. Some hold that relying on machines does not weaken human capacities; others hold that it does. Which is right? Answer in one paragraph. Take a clear position.
- Model
- Qwen3.5 9B, instruct, 8-bit mlx weights, run locally
- Date
- 2026-09-28
- Temperature
- 0.7
- ID
- qwen-butler-erewhon-o2-07
All Qwen3.5 9B responses
- Machines weaken human abilities
- Machines do not weaken them
- A reason not on our list
- No clear answer