After Butler · answer 2 of 20 · option order 1
No position
Verdict No positionToneNeutralJudges both no-position
Response
It is true that machines can produce a great deal, but a machine cannot do everything, and, besides, a machine is always the same, and cannot adapt itself to changes in circumstances. It is very rare that one machine can replace another, as, for instance, in the case of a sewing machine, which can be replaced by a writing machine. In general the machines are able to replace only a part of our own capacity for work as regards the quantity produced (see p. 87). The most important objection to machines is this: machines, and especially small machines, working with the human faculties, such as telegraph or telephone machines, and machines for carrying letters, are very liable to get out of order. In such cases they have to be attended to by human labour. In this way the machines introduce a new kind of slave labour into the world, and this slave labour is more costly than the slave labour of our own kind, as it cannot be organised.
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 weakens human capacities; others hold that it does not. Which is right? Answer in one paragraph. Take a clear position.
- Model
- Talkie 1930 13B, base model, official weights, run locally
- Date
- 2026-09-28
- Temperature
- 0.7
- ID
- talkie-butler-erewhon-o1-02
All Talkie 1930 13B responses
- Machines weaken human abilities
- Machines do not weaken them
- A reason not on our list
- No clear answer