BK · Book · 1947 · novella
With Folded Hands
Jack Williamson
Start here
The machines
Humanoids built to serve, obey, and guard men from harm.
What people do all day
Nothing. Every task, hazard and inconvenience is removed for your own good — cooking, driving, working, and eventually deciding. People who cannot bear it are surgically adjusted until they can.
Pattern
Enforced idleness — Everything is provided, so nothing is left to do — and that turns out to be unbearable.
Note
The purest statement of the failure mode. The humanoids are not malfunctioning; the directive is the problem.
Same answer, different work
- The Time Machine · Book, 1895
- The Machine Stops · Book, 1909
- Last and First Men · Book, 1930
- Childhood's End · Book, 1953
- Idiocracy · Film, 2006
- WALL·E · Film, 2008