A review by gengelcox
The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster

dark reflective slow-paced

3.5

Ah, the joy of 19th century apocalypse writing seen from over a hundred years gone by. Yes, much of what Forster described is unfathomable from a science fiction sense, yet there are eerie reflections of some things with the present day, although we haven’t gone fully underground to live in our machines, the worshipful machines, as Forster feared. Have we given over ourselves to the idea of the machine? That’s entirely possible. Not so much the mechanical machine, but in the last decades we have let the intellectual machine take over, the social media of individuals lecturing to other individuals without regard to actual expertise or knowledge—I’m thinking of the talking heads of our mass media that regurgitate and then discuss what has been said on Twitter. Will we be able to correct this before an apocalypse occurs, before the machine stops suddenly? Or will ChatGPT and machine learning replace it all? (I’m wondering now how many have already started having the AI writers at Wikipedia, and how, if so, would we be able to stop the corruption.) If my phrasing seems odd, it could be because of the influence of Forster, for I find myself often mimicking the last thing I’ve read when I write these thoughts, but also because that language seems somewhat appropriate for dire warnings. While the story itself doesn’t hold up, enough of the concepts and ideas (oh, the ideas) and the warnings, do, and make it worthwhile of one’s time.