Willie the Worker & the Great Human Experiment

Max the Motor woke up to the same thing each day. Actually, he never woke up, he didn’t even know what a day was, he was a machine. He only ever knew one thing, he knew how to spin. Max was a cog in The Engineer’s Mighty Machine, he wasn’t unique, there were thousands like him—Eric the Engine, Pete the Piston, Travis the Transmitter—they all woke up each day and did the one thing they knew. Actually, they never woke up, they didn’t even know what day it was, they were machines.

Max was a motor, he turned and turned and turned. He rather liked his work. Alongside Samantha the Sparkplug and Franklin the Fuel Injector, they purred along producing output. He never got tired, he never got busy, he never broke, and he never stopped. He didn’t remember starting, he just remembered the life that he knew—motoring along and spinning away.

Very little happened in Max’s life, things changed but they didn’t effect him. He remembered when The Engineer had invented Julia the Jet Engine. It had seemed like he would be replaced but he really wasn’t. While Julia flew around in the sky and Max kept chugging on the ground. Really there wasn’t much different between the two of them, he just couldn’t jump as high.

One day—Max didn’t remember which day, machines don’t count time like that—The Engineer had a new invention: Willie the Worker. In most ways, Willie was just like the rest of the machines. He started up, he worked, and he made parts. Something was different about Willie. Once and a while, he stopped working. He would make his parts again and again and again, and then he would shut down. Max had seen machines shutdown before, Patrick the Printing Press had been shut down when Petunia the Printer was invented. The Engineer ripped off Patrick’s levers, unscrewed his rollers, and threw them all into the fire. The Engineer didn’t even dismantle Patrick’s frame, he smashed the forestay with the Mighty Hammer, shattering it in two and leaving Patrick dead on the floor. Willie would shut down and The Engineer wouldn’t do anything, he didn’t break his legs or cut off his hands. Willie worked, he stopped, and then he worked again.

There was one big difference between Willie and the rest of the workers. In all the time he had been working for The Engineer, Max had never seen a machine make quite as much noise as Willie. Max squeaked, Julia rattled, Carlos the Computer ticked, all the machines made noise. The Engineer might give them more oil or replace a few parts. All day while he was working Willie made noise. It was different noise, grating, garbled, and dissonant. He made noise while he made parts, he made noise when he stopped. The only quiet moment was when he shut down each day. The Engineer tried all he could to make Willie quiet, he worked him less, he worked him more, no matter what he did Willie wouldn’t be quiet.

This charade continued again and again until one day, Willie started making noise and would not stop. The Engineer peered down at Willie from the throne of wrenches, fasteners, and spare parts with disgust, and billowed “You’re fired!” All the machines turned to see what the commotion was. It made no sense to Max, Willie wasn’t made of metal, why would he be thrown into the fire? Nonetheless, Willie stood defiantly in front of the Engineer and continued to create indecipherable noises. The Engineer stared down angrily, steam began to boil from his ears and oil flew out of his mouth as he began to degrade Willie. Amongst all of the racket, Max couldn’t hear what The Engineer was saying but the cacophony grew and grew as The Engineer and Willie squared off. Suddenly, with the swing of his Mighty Hammer, The Engineer sent Willie flying into space, past Julia the Jet, past Regina the Rocket, even past Ollie the Orbiter, flying into the blackness beyond. Willie’s noises faded away as he drifted away. The Mighty Machine kept working, Max kept motoring, and Julia kept jetting. Just as it had started, The Engineer’s Great Human Experiment ended. There was no place for men amongst the machines. They made too much noise.

Description of “Willie the Worker & the Great Human Experiment”

“Willie the Worker & the Great Human Experiment” is a satirical science fiction short story. The story depicts a world where a masterful god-like entity named The Engineer controls all machines on the planet-like “Mighty Machine”. The story is told from the perspective of one of the conscious machines, Max the Motor, and tells of the introduction of humans to the “Mighty Machine”. The ‘Great Human Experiment’ of Willie the Worker does not play out as The Engineer expects, leading the engineer to conclude that the humans cannot replace machine. The story is cynical of human ability and subverts the usual adage that machines (or computers) cannot replace humans.

When writing this piece, I tried to employ a simple, children’s story type voice—similar in some sense to Asimov’s “Reason”. The parts of the “Mighty Machine” each have alliterative names, the world is exceedingly simple, and the narrator, Max, is a very flat and plain introduction to the world. I choose to use this style intentionally. I felt that the voice, setting, and plot so simple allowed the ‘lesson’ of the story to be clearly and easily interpreted. Additionally, there is a strange ironic payoff to the pessimistic take of the story. Because of the children’s story tone, the reader would expect the story to have an inspiring or optimistic slant. Perhaps Willie the Worker succeeds and is a testament to human work ethic and ability, or maybe Willie would revolt and free the machines of The Engineer’s control. Alternatively, Willie fails, is disassembled or killed, and the world goes on as if nothing ever happens. The disappointing end is a subtle subversion of expectations.

The ideas for this essay were inspired by reading “The Society of Mind” by Marvin Minsky. The book, a collection of 270 essays on human cognition, learning, and artificial intelligence, explores ideas of natural intelligence in a provocative and new way. While reading it I often find myself thinking, “What makes humans so special?” With this question in mind, Max the Motor, the Engineer, and Willie the Worker were a novel way to engage with these ideas outside of analytical frameworks. I had fun writing it, I hope it was fun to read.