This reading strikes me with its strong contrast between people’s peaceful and regular routine under the service of the Machine at the beginning, and the scene of total chaos and violence at the end when the Machine stops. I’m especially impressed by the struggle between humanity and the religion of the Machine that the reading depicts.
In this reading, people live under the surface of the earth and depend their lives on the Machine. It reminds me of the recent Chinese sci-fi movie “The Wandering Earth”, in which people also live undergrounds and are banned from visiting the earth’s surface unless having special working licenses, and the earth is powered by multiple huge engines around the globe. This common setting reflects the concern that human activities will exhaust the earth’s resources someday in the future, and that people will be both benefitting and suffering from their high-tech creations.
Different from the movie, where the underground world is built up and operate by humans, the one in the reading is under the charge of a humming Machine. There is a contrast between Vashti’s and Kuno’s attitude towards the Machine. The former, representing the majority, worships the Machine as a almighty “God” and is too fear to leave its control or violate its rules, while the latter, tired of the mechanic routine and driven by his strong curiosity about the outside world, is looking forward to a life without the Machine. It’s ironic that the Machine, enabling people to call and see each other whenever and wherever with the Virtual Reality technology, is at the same time distancing the relationships between them, and isolating individuals’ lives. Vashti often emphasizes the preciousness of her time, but all she do after getting up is connecting friends and attending or giving lectures through the Machine, even without leaving her armchair. It seems that the machine brings people closer, as they can see the virtual images of each other when making calls and talk to them as if face to face. But such technology at the same time deprive people’s desire to actually come out and communicate with each other in the fresh. Vashti seldom sees her son since he left, not even knowing the detail reasons and process of his moving to the other side of the earth. Moreover, the Book of the Machine forbids direct body contact undergrounds, and as Vashti expresses, there is not much different in seeing somebody virtually or in reality, which also accounts for her reluctance to travel to visit her son initially. I stopped and pondered as I read this part. Virtual reality breaks the time and space limits, and enriches our experiences, but it can never replace reality. We should be alerted when the majority of us are indulged in the virtual world created by technology and become unwilling to get out of our own safe-zones, because that is the time when the reality starts to fade.
There is another interesting idea expressed in the reading. The Book of the Machine serves as a Bible in that world, and the Machine is the God. Although Vashti denies trusting the Machine as a religion, she and many other people have already become its most pious followers. On the other hand, as Kuno mentions, the Machine is created by man, so are the rules. And thus, men are trapped by their creation. In the world of the Machine, people not only become more selfish and complacent, but also lose the passion to explore and improve, which inevitably leads to the stop of the Machine in the end. But the Machine should never be to blame, since it did nothing wrong other than regulates and serves people well. It is men who ruined their life with their own hands and minds. Extending to the popular topic of the threats of the AIs, it is also man rather than AI brains that we should worry about. Many Science Fictions today describe the future to be under the deployment of AIs, and humans are only tools of these super minds. But will the AIs evolve and develop their own minds that planning on turning against human? No one knows the answer, since no human can catch up with the speed of machine learning. However, I believe that AIs are just magnified human minds, which intensify the power of both the strengths and weaknesses of humanity. After all, AIs are lack of emotions. When AIs kill a man, it is not because they want to, but usually that removing him or her is the easiest way achieve certain goals, and they are programmed by man to pursue the highest efficiency. In many cases where men are troubled with their emotions and hesitate to balance the pros and cons of certain decision, AIs won’t, which leads to their so-called evilness. The world of Machine in the reading is lack of humanity, in that it eliminates the physically strong body at birth to maintain the order of that society. Is it that the Machine is plotting some scheme against humans and that it is preparing for it by removing those strong bodies? No, the Machine is created and programmed by people. When we are overwhelmed by greediness and desires, we want the most of everything, and tend to choose the easiest and quickest way. The Machine stands for an easy way of governance, in which athletics and explorers are not needed, and their existence are likely to bring disturbances. Kuno is a representation of such exception, who dares to break the rules. His role in the reading reminds me that troubles and hardness are necessary in our life, and can sometimes save us from blindness. Efficiency and easiness are not always the best, and thus we need to consider more comprehensively instead of making easy conclusions.
The stop of the Machine, which seems like a total disaster, is in fact the beginning of the fortune of the society.