Post #1483821

2026-04-19 01:06 UTC

There&#39;s a character in Galápagos, the 1985 novel by Kurt Vonnegut, who has created a computer called the Mandarax that can understand natural language, translate languages, and answer questions on many topics -- it&#39;s basically an LLM. His wife does ikebana (Japanese flower arrangements) and she discovers that his machine can do it as well as her because he&#39;s tape recorded her classes and fed the data into the computer. She says to him, &quot;You, Doctor Hiroguchi, think that everybody but yourself is just taking up space on this planet, and we make too much noise and waste valuable natural resources and have too many children and leave garbage around. So it would be a much nicer place if the few stupid services we are able to perform for the the likes of you were taken over by machinery. That wonderful Mandarax you&#39;re scratching your ear with now: what is that but an excuse for a mean-spirited egomaniac never to pay or even thank any human being with a knowledge of languages or mathematics or history or medicine or literature or ikebana or anything?&quot; I read that on the bus this afternoon. #Books #Tech #AI

Replies (6)

@yuki2501@masto.hackers.town 2026-05-16 18:43

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social I recall that the first luddites were people who fought not against industrialization, but it's indiscriminate use by the capitalist class. Obviously, entrepreneurs wanted (then and now) to spare labor costs. Corporations will never change. EDIT: Switched language.

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@gwcoffey@mastodon.social 2026-05-16 20:21

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social Vonneguts first novel is essentially all about this. Not LLMs. But the tension of machines replacing human dignity.

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@arisummerland@beige.party 2026-05-17 15:12

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social It has been a few decades since I read that one but wow, does this quote hit home now. Thanks for the reminder!

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@dan_kn@mastodon.social 2026-05-17 15:35

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social they haven’t been paying or thanking humans with knowledge of language, history, and literature for a long time. Maths and medicine are useful for dehumanization; the others are not. America has been in its great anti-intellectual, anti-human, fundamentalist leap backward for a long time, all aligned in not thinking, not feeling, child abuse, and educational malpractice. There is no defence against idiocy. It must simply burn itself out.

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@balglaas@mastodon.social 2026-05-17 20:44

@strange_new_words@tenforward.social One more book I need to reread, I read it when it came out.

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@hello@rumbly.net 2026-05-18 01:57

Player Piano, a book he wrote in the 1950's accurately predicted what's happening now I think.

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