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Week 1: Response to “The Machine Stops” – Samanta Shi

I am impressed by Forster’s imagination of future technology, as he lived during a time when machine learning and AI, let alone the internet, had not been born.  As I was reading “The Machine Stops”, I could not help but think about the various TV shows that address similar dystopian concerns but through different means, such as The 100 or Altered Carbon.  When it comes to dystopian futures, authors and creatives across the board seem to enjoy the exploration of the following themes:

  • human dependence on machinery,
  • lack of autonomy and independence,
  • the displacement of humans and their homes (underground vs. in space),
  • lack of physical contact, emotional dissonance and even incapability,
  • lack of empathy, imagination, originality, and
  • the significance of a higher power / being / source of guidance to human harmony and function

All of which were present in Forster’s piece.  I was particularly struck by this dialogue:

“You are beginning to worship the Machine,” he said coldly. “You think it irreligious of me to have found out a way of my own. It was just what the Committee thought, when they threatened me with Homelessness.” At this she grew angry. “I worship nothing!” she cried. “I am most advanced. I don’t think you irreligious, for there is no such thing as religion left. All the fear and the superstition that existed once have been destroyed by the Machine. (Pg. 11)

Forster questions the meaning of religion and shows a different way in which it can manifest itself. What will humans turn to when “there is no such thing as religion left”? Will they find another form of religion?  Where or who will they seek guidance and meaning from?   Later on in the text, Forster reminds the reader that [hu]man is responsible for the machine:

‘The Machine is the friend of ideas and the enemy of superstition: the Machine is omnipotent, eternal; blessed is the Machine.’ And before long this allocution was printed on the first page of the Book, and in subsequent editions the ritual swelled into a complicated system of praise and prayer. The word ‘religion’ was sedulously avoided, and in theory the Machine was still the creation and the implement of man. (Pg. 19)

I believe that Forster was commenting on this idea that when humans “play God” by creating something that is perhaps beyond them (“The Machine”), then they must not forget to consider the potential consequences.  The dystopian nature of the story almost suggests that humans should perhaps avoid facilitating the progression of technology to its fullest potential because it will indeed get out of hand.   Unsurprisingly, when the machine stops, chaos ensues and the fate of the characters is sealed.  At the very end, when Kuno says that “Humanity has learned its lesson”, we experience a slight moment of hope only to be followed by the conclusion that humans do not but taint:

For a moment they saw the nations of the dead, and, before they joined them, scraps of the untainted sky.

As we develop ever more sophisticated technology, we need not forget the importance of not only understanding the consequences of the invention or innovation we put forward, but also proposing a plan for how we might deal with that new reality. Regardless of how prepared we might be, I am convinced that we have an unavoidable blindspot. How might we mitigate the implications of that blindspot? Now, that is the question.

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Response to E.M. Forster—Kimmy Tanchay

In the short story, “The Machine Stops”, Foster conveys the dystopian future of a “machine”-controlled world where any spare human thought or essence is heavily discouraged. Told in a third person narrative and follows the characters of Vashti and Kuno, the story heavily suggests the detrimental effects on the human race when the power of technology becomes uncontrollable.

Although the Machine was able to save the human race as a species, the characteristics, such as morals, thoughts, emotions, real interactions and ideas, that make human beings human has been lost in the process. The capitalisation of the “Machine” conveys the significant presence of technology amongst the lives of human beings that it has become more than a mere object. In this world, human beings not only conform to the rules dictated upon them by the Machine, but they also refuse to criticise or go against it with Vashti stating, “Oh hush! You mustn’t say anything against the machine.” () Hence, further showing the power of the Machine and foreshadowing its destructive nature as it is able to spark fear in humans despite machines being created by us. This perhaps may allude to symbolism for human being’s current relationship with religion or even strong political government censorship such as in China.

In the end, the Machine Stops provides a foreshadowing of the dangers on the over-reliance of machines and technology to human beings. This is extremely relevant in a time when digital media and technology has quickly taken over and integrated into many of our daily lives that we often fail to remember how to live without them. 

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Week 1: Response to E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops” – Kat Valachova

Reading “The Machine Stops”, I have been reminded of some of the up to date worrisome aspects of super computers. Not only has the “thinking” and processing speed of the systems by far surpassed the problem-solving speed of a any human being, we have now even created neuro-inspired computers, that are capable of self-learning. This is one of the issues I would like to point out when it comes to AI (artificial intelligence), as the possibility of the AI becoming aware of itself can be fatal. The threat of superintelligence also stays as one of the top of the biggest threats to human existence, together with nuclear war and bioengineered pandemic. If this were to happen, with the speed of data processing, mankind would stand no chance in “outsmarting” such a formidable opponent. If this were to happen, how would the AI view us then. Would we be marked as an enemy? It is hard to say.

There have been written many Asimov-style stories on this topic, “The Machine Stops” being one of them, that point out how dangerous it is to leave our lives in the hands of our own intelligent creations. And although there have been set fundamental rules for AI learning, the “Three Laws of Robotics” (by Asimov), that should ensure the human’s wellbeing and safety to be the utmost priority, we have been shown many times through the story examples, that interpretations can vary. In the case of “The Machine Stops”, it was an obvious inclination to the survival of the bigger system, in which (in the same way as in beehive), the individual doesn’t matter, as long as his (non)existence contributes to the wellbeing of the whole (deviating from the Three Laws).

If you have some spare time, I would recommend reading a very interesting collection of stories by Michael Ende: The Prison of Freedom, where you can find another such a story.

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Reflection on The Machine Stops by E.M. Foster—— By Steve Sun

Reflection on The Machine Stops by E.M. Foster

The fiction describes a dystopian future of human race that the machines took the control over the world. The human in that fictional world lived underground separately in chambers where all their needs were fulfilled by the buttons on the walls. The people spent their whole life in the chambers and their thoughts were generated in it. As a result over many years the people below the surface began to change and worship the machine. The transportation to the surface of the earth and between humans were not banned but no one saw any need in doing such thing. The main character of the fiction are Vashti who was consent with her life in the chamber and her son Kuno who has always challenged the authority of the Machine. The story follows the two of them as they struggle to keep their relationship in this world.

I do agree with a lot of people who have read this fiction that the theme of this story lies in that a world which depend itself solely on the technology and “Machines” will definitely end up catastrophically for human, which in this case is that the machine stops working and collapsed, along with the humans in it. But I think that it’s not only the physical body of the human were destroyed, but also the thought of human were controlled. People living in the chambers simply believe that the environment on surface of the earth is too hostile to live and simply deny the fact that there were indeed people living on it. People who challenge the authority of the Machine will be seen as  ‘unmechanical’ and threatened with Homelessness. And what’s more tragic is that the fact that the human fears the Machine was initially created by human rather than by machine itself. It’s the human who created the machine, it’s also human who are satisfied with their lives imprisoned in the machine and the interaction cut by machine, and its also human who gradually depend their whole life on machine and see them as their god. While machines just followed the things that they are programmed to do, or to some extend, they did nothing, but by doing nothing they controlled human who were meant to control. How ironic.

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Week 1: Response to “E.M. Forster” – Hanna Rinderknecht-Mahaffy

While first starting E.M Forster’s “The Machine Stops,” I found the narrative somewhat strange. The more I read however, the more fascinating the premise of the story became. In Forster’s imaginary world, civilization does not resemble humanity as we know it today. Instead, all in the world is all alike and is totally run and controlled by the Machine. Instead of human contact, emotion, and connection, the people of this world are entirely focused on ideas as the main point in life. The machine seems to take away all elements of humanity that we know today and leads people to worship the machine, treating The Book like a bible of sorts. Any deviation from the Machine’s goals was punished by “Homelessness,” which was banishment to the surface, where people couldn’t survive. This attitude is shown in the mother’s reaction to her son’s admission of his self-exploration to the surface. “There was not room for such a person in the world. And with her pity disgust mingled. She was ashamed at having borne such a son, she who had always been so respectable and so full of ideas. Was he really the little boy to whom
she had taught the use of his stops and buttons, and to whom she had given his first lessons in the Book? The very hair that disfigured his lip showed that he was reverting to some savage type. On atavism the Machine can have no mercy.” This quote clearly shows how society values unquestionable loyalty to the Machine, and how any exemplification of human uniqueness is in conflict with that loyalty. This attitude toward her son struck me in that she does not seem to care at all for her son on a personal, familial level, instead she can only feel proud of him when he is participating in the system of the Machine. 

In Section 3, “The Homeless”, there are two developments in the Machine. “The second great development was the re-establishment of religion.” In this section, the author describes how the Machine has now actually become a religion, further solidifying the control the Machine has on all the people in the world. Lecturers of the world discuss how the Machine is omnipotent, implying the God-like nature of the system, and the utter lack of control people have over their own lives and basic needs. I found this concept to be very ironic, as the Machine seemed to have been originally created to be useful for humans and was not indented to control them. In our real world today of increasing reliance on advancing technology, this narrative seems to be a cautionary tale that while technology can be put to good use by humans, there may be a point where it is taken too far and gets beyond our control, permanently altering who we are as a civilization. This story is, of course, and extreme hyperbole of such a scenario, however when I consider how much we, and our daily habits, have changed over the last fifty years due to technology, such a concept does not seem so far stretched.