The sci-fi machines that talk, but only about one thing

Boing Boing points to an observation from blogger Matt Webb, who collected excerpts from science fiction stories featuring machines designed to do just one thing. One example: an ATM that discourages long conversations. The premise is striking because modern voice AI does the opposite — it's built to discuss almost anything. Webb's blog, Interconnected, explores these sci-fi visions of single-purpose machines, a sharp contrast to the generalist AI assistants we're building today.

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