#machine stops

Every once in a while, someone writes a story that starts to come true.  E.M. Forster wrote a story over 100 years ago of a world that’s increasingly resembling our present day:

“The Machine Stops” (1909) by E.M. Forster

This is an example of very early machine vision, since it was published about a century ago (1909) in The Oxford and Cambridge Review. As a part of our project we will have different research approaches, one being within narratives so it is only natural to share this iconic sci-fi novella here.

It is set in a subterranean earth, where the whole of the earths population is living inside “the machine”. The story follows the dialogue between a mother and a son, where their means of communication seems to be via something similar to Face time, or Skype. The humankind lives isolated in confined spaces, where every basic desire is taken care of by the machine. The society is no longer interested in what is outside their own rooms, especially not on the surface of the earth, but the son Kuno has begun dreaming about what it is like out there? Beyond the borders of the machine:

“The truth is … that I want to see these stars again. They are curious stars. I want to see them not from the air-ship, but from the surface of the earth, as our ancestors did, thousands of years ago.”

This is a visionary story where Forster has predicted technologies that we are using in our everyday life today such as the constant use of Internet, Instant messaging, face chatting and having robots in your house. The author reflects a worry for the future of humankind, especially regarding our dependence upon technology. (Illustration by Kelly Airo)