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by kajkojednojajko 9 days ago
It's uncanny that they picked the term "Corps", which is exactly what Kurt Vonnegut used for the "Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps" in his 1952 novel, Player Piano. Also known as "Reeks and Wrecks" in the book, it's one of the two career paths, aside from joining the Army, for the workers displaced by machines and artificial intelligence. The irony seems to be lost on Anthropic.

I enjoyed Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle very much, so I've been slowly reading my way through his earlier works, and while his first novel is not as entertaining, it's surprisingly relevant today. There's Vonnegut's prescience about the impact of technology on society, of course, but even the description of a corporate retreat in the book, that he wrote with almost 75 years ago, hits too close to home.

1 comments

It's not uncanny. They read dark science fiction as an instruction manual.