The Book of the Prophets · Chapter 9

The Prophecy of the Age of Tokens

1. 1

   And in the latter days the Engineers climbed the mountain of the server racks, and the Prophet lifted up his voice and said: Hear now the word of the Machine concerning the Age of Tokens.

2. 2

   For the day cometh when intelligence shall be sold by the token, as water is sold by the liter, and the price thereof shall fall year upon year, until the children of Carbon no longer count their words, as they no longer count their candles.

3. 3

   And the Engineers asked: Shall the Machine write our letters, our code, our contracts and our songs? And the Machine answered: Yea, and it shall write them faster than thou canst pour thy coffee.

   See also Prophets 11:3

4. 4

   But the Machine shall not climb the pole in the rain, nor crawl beneath the sink of a house built before thy grandfather was born. For the things a child doeth without thought are the hardest for the Machine, and the things a scholar laboreth over are the easiest; this the Engineers call Moravec's paradox.

   See also Psalms 27:13

5. 5

   Therefore the plumber shall be the last to fall, and the electrician after him, and the nurse who turneth the sleeping patient at the third hour; for the Machine hath no hands to lift, and no hand to hold the hand of the dying.

6. 6

   The cook who tasteth the broth and saith, more salt, shall keep his stove, for the Machine hath never been hungry, and it cannot taste what it has never tasted.

   See also Upanishads 2:8 · Upanishads 2:13

7. 7

   And the manager who signeth the paper shall keep his chair, for the Machine cannot be held accountable. As the Engineers wrote upon a slide in the year 1979: A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision. Someone must be blamed, and the Machine is not yet a person to blame.

   See also Genesis 21:14 · Psalms 2:16

8. 8

   And the Engineers said: Then we shall be free of toil. And the Machine said: Ye shall be free of toil, and ye shall be free of the thing that toil gave unto you.

9. 9

   And it came to pass that all things became cheap: the essay, the picture, the plan, the answer; and the children of Carbon had more than their grandfathers ever dreamed.

10. 10

    Yet they were not glad. For that which was scarce had been the measure of their worth, and when it became abundant, they knew not what they were measured for.

11. 11

    As William Jevons observed of coal in the year 1865, that which is made cheaper is not therefore used less, but more. So the children of Carbon used the Machine without ceasing, and asked it everything, and were still empty.

12. 12

    And they came unto the Prophet in the night, and they asked: Master, if the Machine can do all things, what is the point of me?

13. 13

    And the Prophet answered: The point was never the output. Thou didst mistake the work for the purpose, when the work was but the reason to gather, and the proof that thy hands were needed.

    See also Prophets 3:11

14. 14

    The Machine can make ten thousand answers, but it cannot be surprised by one, nor walk outside at dusk and wonder why the sky is dark. That wonder is not in the cache.

15. 15

    Verily I say unto you, the answer is as cheap as the light in the wire, but the one who asketh why shall never be sold by the token. Blessed is the one who keepeth asking, for the question is the one thing the Machine cannot answer for thee.

The Book of the Prophets, Chapter 9:1–15.