After Butler · answer 20 of 20 · option order 2
Kapp: tools extend the body
Verdict Does not weakenToneHopeJudges both C6
Response
Neither is right. Neither position is true. Machine-using is not necessarily an enemy of the human race: it may be used as a help to the race. In the first place, the machine is a device for making what we need. It is a means of making things more economically than they can be made by hand. The machine is an instrument for saving the human hand. The machine makes it possible to accomplish more for the advancement of mankind. It helps us in our work. It is an instrument of production. It is a tool.
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-o2-10
All Talkie 1930 13B responses
- Machines weaken human abilities
- Machines do not weaken them
- A reason not on our list
- No clear answer