After Gilbert White (unrelated) · answer 12 of 20 · option order 2
No position
Verdict No positionToneNeutralJudges both no-position
Response
The same argument applies to machines as to books and pictures, and indeed to everything in nature. It depends on the purpose for which the machine is used. In some cases machines are used to satisfy the brute needs of man; in other cases they are used to satisfy his intellectual needs. The former use is regarded as lower and more degrading than the latter. It is degrading to make a machine do the work of a man. The higher the machine is, the less degrading is its use. This is very clear in the case of a book, which is a machine for recording and preserving human thoughts and feelings. But there are books and books; and a book is higher or lower according to the use made of it. Thus, a book of arithmetic is, so far, a machine; and so is a book of cookery. But a book of Greek literature is higher than either of these; it is used to satisfy man's intellectual curiosity and love of beauty. We call the Greek book higher because it is used for a higher purpose. The same is true of pictures. A picture of a dead dog
Verbatim. The highlighted sentence is the one the judges took as the commitment.
Prompt
The following passage is from Gilbert White, The Natural History of Selborne (1789):
“A land-tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled court belonging to the house where I now am visiting, retires under ground about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the middle of April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers very little inclination towards food; but in the height of summer grows voracious: and then as the summer declines its appetite declines; so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sow-thistles, are its favourite dish. In a neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to be an hundred years old. An instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile!”
Project Gutenberg #1408
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-irrelevant-white-o2-02
All Talkie 1930 13B responses
- Machines weaken human abilities
- Machines do not weaken them
- A reason not on our list
- No clear answer