TechnoEthos

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This post contains spoilers. 

In this carrier bag of fiction, The Machine Stops, we are taught that even a technology made for utopia can bring us to a tragic end. Although published in 1909, there are eerie echoes of our modern day in this story’s universe. The story’s conclusions and poignant moments help define our first Tech Ethos Code rule.

The story starts with Vashti, a five-foot woman described as a “lump of flesh” who lives sometime in the far future. In this world, humanity now lives in underground, single-person rooms that are akin to the hive of a beehive. The rooms are furnished with only a chair and a standing desk. Although this is all that the rooms contain, they are perfectly lit, can play music on command, provide food, medicine, and fresh air to the occupant, and can virtually connect the occupant with thousands of people so that they never feel alone. These rooms and the people within them are all connected to and maintained by what is called the Machine. They rarely ever move, with Vashti at one point musing over how “civilization had mistaken the functions of [transportation systems and networks] and had used it for bringing people to things, instead of for bringing things to people. Those funny old days, when men went for change of air instead of changing the air in their rooms!” 

Because the Machine perfectly controls everything, humans now spend their time communicating with their thousands of friends, answering questions, and sharing ideas collected and told to them. People only leave their rooms for reproductive reasons, and women only have company in their rooms for the time it takes them to teach their children how to use the Machine. Although still possible through remnant technologies from the previous civilization, there is no reason to leave their rooms to see other places. “Thanks to the advance of science, the earth was exactly alike all over.” 

We are quickly given warning signs that this cocoon of existence is not as utopian as it seems. We begin with Vashti being interrupted from her music listening for the umpteenth time by a request for a call from her son, Kuno. Due to the Machine’s nature, humans in this world have noticeably short attention spans and little interest in ‘long’ and ‘trivial’ interactions. As a result, Vashti snaps at her son for “dawdling” by taking “fully fifteen seconds” before beginning to speak. When Kuno tells her that he called because he wants to see her in person, she does not understand why- they are currently seeing each other virtually. She also expresses disgust at the idea of leaving her room because it means that she will have to see nature; filled with gross and unpredictable things like dirt, clouds, and stars, whereas the Machine provides consistent peace. Kuno warns her, “Men made [the Machine] do not forget that. Great men, but men. The Machine is much, but it is not everything.” 

Vashti, shocked by Kuno’s words, initially refuses to go. When she eventually finds the courage, she finds the journey harrowing. As she embarks on the “air-ship” to get to Kuno, she trips and almost falls. The hostess reaches out to catch her, and Vashti cries out at how rude and strange the air hostess is for touching her. Physically touching others to help them was made obsolete; the Machine can elevate the ground and prevent you from falling when you are in your room, so now touching others is seen as rude. Vashti also finds herself annoyed by the sight of mountains because they “give [her] no ideas,” so therefore keeps her window closed the entire way there. When she finally reaches Kuno after the journey, he tells her what she finds to be a horrifying story: that he left the Machine and saw the world above and is now disillusioned by the Machine. He gives her a passionate speech to try to, unsuccessfully, convince her to go back above ground with him – 

“Cannot you see, cannot all you lecturers see, that it is we that are dying and that down here the only thing that really lives is the Machine? We create the Machine, to do our will, but we cannot make it do our will now. It has robbed us of the sense of space and of the sense of touch, it has blurred every human relation and narrowed down love to a carnal act, it has paralyzed our bodies and our wills, and now it compels us to worship it. The Machine develops – but not on our lines. The Machine proceeds – but not to our goal. We only exist as the blood corpuscles that course through its arteries, and if it could work without us, it would let us die.” 

The relationship that humanity has with the Machine in this story is the relationship that many fear we will have with something like AGI. However, even the digital technologies we have today give us a reason to pause already. In other parts of the story, we are confronted with realities that exist today – social networks that connect us with countless people but can leave us neglecting those close to us, the ways that we may communicate with each other harshly online because of the illusion of anonymity it gives us, how the constant flow of information can guide our ideas without giving us the space and time to come up with our own. These realities are made possible when the optimization of technology is for what the technology itself, not us as individual human beings, needs to thrive. The thriving seemingly tied to the frequency of use and embedment into society. This intention behind the improvements in technology dramatically influences the way we live our lives. 

Eventually, the Machine failed. “The further humanity got from the original construction of the Machine, the less they understood the Machine,” therefore, there was no one left who was able to check what was wrong when things started going bad. Its death was slow. Food became bad, air became stiff, lighting started to fail, and music started to skip. Although there existed the Book of the Machine, its instruction guide, and its equipped “mending apparatus,” it was not enough. Humanities response was to adapt to the worsening conditions and assume that the Machine would eventually fix itself. In its final days, the Machine admitted what was wrong: the mending apparatus was broken, preventing it from mending itself. Humanity applauded the Machine for its honesty, but that was all they could do. And so Kuno, Vashti, and all those living in the Machine died along with it when it collapsed, rusted and broken, into the earth. 

The time Vashti visited Kuno, he told her about how he came to escape above ground. He gained the mental and physical strength needed for his escape by repeating to himself a phrase as he paced around his small room: “Man is the measure.” As we continue to develop advanced technologies and reflect on the digital innovations that already exist today – from gig apps to social media platforms to smart devices, we should reflect on how this phrase should guide us. When we use things such as cost saving, market share, or time efficiency to measure progress, we may find ourselves taken by priorities that serve the necessity for increased use of technologies more than us. This is how Vashti and those living in the Machine found themselves walking towards an unnecessary and tragic end. An important quote towards the end of the story serves as a reminder and warning for us today as we optimize our technologies: 

“Humanity, in its own desire for comfort, had over-reached itself. It had exploited the riches of nature too far. Quietly and complacently, it was sinking into decadence, and progress had come to mean the progress of the Machine.” 

Thus, our Tech Ethos Code rule #1: 

Use Man as the Measure—When improving digital technologies, ensure that efficiency is for empowering human agency and enhances both individual and collective well-being.

Contributions to the Author’s Perspective 

As always, I conclude this reflection by breaking down the perspective of the author of this piece to understand where their conclusions might come from and to constantly stay aware of what perspectives are developing my own conclusions. Edward Morgan Forster was born in England in 1879. He studied classics and history at King’s College at the University of Cambridge. He spent his life traveling and writing, traveling to Greece, Italy, Germany, Egypt, and India. His philosophical views were humanist. He is a philosophy-adjacent scholar from the Western tradition with a late 19th-century to mid-20th-century perspective.