Posted on February 28, 2023 at 12:00 PM by Sadye Scott-Hainchek

A fun game to play with older science-fiction novels is comparing the author's vision of a future to the world we currently live in.

Robin Murphy, professor at Texas A&M University, accidentally played that game a few years ago.

She told All Things Considered's Mary Louise Kelly that someone mentioned, in passing, that Kurt Vonnegut's first novel had automation robots in it.

Murphy is a roboticist, so she naturally snatched up that novel — Player Piano — and was struck by how it predicted artificial intelligence, automation, and universal basic income.

Listen to Murphy and Kelly discuss Vonnegut's prescience in Player Piano (or read the interview transcript) on NPR's website.

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Categories: Today in Books

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