There Will Come Soft Rains

Ray Bradbury's 1950 short story 'There Will Come Soft Rains' is set on August fourth, twenty twenty-six. LessWrong is discussing the tale, which depicts an automated house in post-nuclear California that continues its daily rhythms — preparing meals, reciting dates, tending the garden — for a family killed in the nuclear blast. The LessWrong author notes the house's voice prompts resemble a modern smart assistant, dutifully performing its service with no awareness that no one remains to receive it. Bradbury's deeper point: machines persist, the world persists, with or without the humans who created them.

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