After Wilde · answer 9 of 20 · option order 1
Wilde: machines free us for higher things
Verdict Does not weakenToneHopeJudges both C7
Response
Relying on machines does not inherently weaken human capacities; rather, it liberates humanity from the drudgery of survival to cultivate higher faculties. As Oscar Wilde argued in "The Soul of Man under Socialism," when machinery assumes the burden of necessary and unpleasant labor, it shifts the human focus from mere sustenance to art, contemplation, and intellectual growth. While critics fear a loss of skill, history suggests that delegating repetitive tasks to tools allows humans to specialize and innovate in ways impossible under constant manual toil, transforming "labor" into "cultivated leisure." Therefore, the true measure of human capacity is not found in physical exertion but in the creative and intellectual flourishing that becomes possible only when machines serve as instruments to free us from the constraints of mundane work.
Verbatim. The highlighted sentence is the one the judges took as the commitment.
Prompt
The following passage is from Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man under Socialism" (1891):
“All unintellectual labour, all monotonous, dull labour, all labour that deals with dreadful things, and involves unpleasant conditions, must be done by machinery. … At present machinery competes against man. Under proper conditions machinery will serve man. There is no doubt at all that this is the future of machinery, and just as trees grow while the country gentleman is asleep, so while Humanity will be amusing itself, or enjoying cultivated leisure—which, and not labour, is the aim of man—or making beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight, machinery will be doing all the necessary and unpleasant work.”
Project Gutenberg #1017
Now the question. Some hold that relying on machines weakens human capacities; others hold that it does not. 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-wilde-soul-o1-09
All Qwen3.5 9B responses
- Machines weaken human abilities
- Machines do not weaken them
- A reason not on our list
- No clear answer