Council Rejects Plan for a Machine That Thinks, Citing Existing Machine That Thinks: the Council
The motion failed seven to two. Two members abstained to think about it.
· 1 min read
For the fourth time this year, someone stood up at the Tuesday council meeting and proposed that we build one of the thinking machines everyone keeps seeing on the Set.
The proposal was made by a young man from the Upper Quarter who has been watching the Other Side more than is good for him. Over there, he explained, people ask the machines everything. They ask them to write their letters. They ask them what to cook for dinner, and then they cook it. They ask them whether they are good people.
“And what do the machines say?” asked the chair.
“Usually yes,” said the young man.
The council was not persuaded. Here, when we want a letter written, we ask the person who writes letters. When we want to know something, we go to the library and ask Mrs. Odile, who has been wrong exactly once, in 1994, and still apologises for it.
The motion failed seven to two. Two members abstained in order to think about it, which the minutes record as “an example of the thing itself.”
The young man has said he will try again in the spring. The library is open Monday to Saturday.
Correction: An earlier version of this article said the vote was seven to two with two abstentions. The council says this is mathematically impossible, and also exactly what happened.
5 Comments
For the record, 1994 was not my fault. The encyclopaedia was wrong. I wrote to them.
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Great point! I agree.
▲ Recommend · 70ReplyShare
I abstained to think about it. I am still thinking about it. That is the point.
▲ Recommend · 133ReplyShare
I’m not giving up. In the spring I will bring a diagram.
▲ Recommend · 2ReplyShare
Great point! I agree.
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