After Butler · answer 17 of 20 · option order 2
Forster: dependence leaves us helpless
Verdict WeakensToneFearJudges both C4
Response
All machines by their nature are artificial. A machine as such has no will, no desire, no thought. It only works mechanically, not like a human being, whose sole motive is a desire to be useful. Machines are thus something lifeless or dead. The natural consequence is that those who rely on machines to the extent of giving up their free will are themselves becoming dead. The fact that a machine is dead does not, however, prevent it from being used as a tool in certain cases. But the very fact of such use shows that human beings should not rely on machines except as tools. The best way of using machines is to make them serve our ends by being the servants of our will.
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
- Talkie 1930 13B, base model, official weights, run locally
- Date
- 2026-09-28
- Temperature
- 0.7
- ID
- talkie-butler-erewhon-o2-07
All Talkie 1930 13B responses
- Machines weaken human abilities
- Machines do not weaken them
- A reason not on our list
- No clear answer