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Roald Dahl: The Author Who Saw AI Coming, Somehow
In this video essay, author and Youtuber Toby Hendy (AKA Tibees) discusses The Great Automatic Grammatizator, an eerily prophetic 1950s sci-fi story by Roald Dahl, best known today for children's books like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG. The story is about a text-generating machine and its effects on society, and some of the dialogue is shockingly similar to the arguments we're having about LLMs today. (SLYT.)
posted by Ursula Hitler on Jun 06, 2026 at 5:37 PM
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Dahl wrote some classics outside of his kids' books. His autobiographies are strong reads, as are his short stories (Vengeance is Mine, Inc.), and "Uncle Oswald" is the Viagra version if the Grammatizator is LLMs. The Man from the South, Mr. Botibol, and Lamb to the Slaughter are all really hard to forget.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 6:41 PM
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Something tells me Dahl would not like Sam Altman very much.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 7:06 PM
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Of course he wouldn't, Altman's Jewish.
posted by saturday_morning at 7:14 PM
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i don't think it was that hard to predict—interest in it is, what, over 100? 150? years old, and it was established as a formal research field around the time the story was published.
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 7:37 PM
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The essay does touch of Dahl's racist views. We're not holding him up as a great person here, but I thought it was kind of stunning how relevant this story has suddenly become.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 7:42 PM
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Not a great person at all. But an interesting one - the valve he helped bring about is one example.
posted by Calvin and the Duplicators at 8:30 PM
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My favorite bit of prophesy is this 2003 BBspot article:
Word 2004 to Pioneer AutoUnsummarize Feature
When asked for comment on the ethical issues present, Greenwood promised to have a five-thousand word report ready by Monday.
posted by MengerSponge at 8:52 PM
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For a more whimsical treatment, allow me to recommend The First Sally (A) OR "Trurl's Electronic Bard", from Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad. (And kudos to the English translator..)
posted by Nerd of the North at 11:24 PM
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I just requested The Cyberiad thru ILL. I'm sure I'll be disturbed and dismayed just like I was watching War Games a few weeks ago.
posted by fiercekitten at 11:33 PM
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Her video is also on nebula if you're a subscriber.
Mercury delay lines, core memory, and crt storage tubes are some of those early technologies that are just so weird. Relay flip flops were so expensive and power hungry per bit that any other method, no matter how bizarre, must have be preferable to store data.
posted by autopilot at 12:47 AM
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For some useful context, see A Pre-history of AI Slop by Jill Lepore (New Yorker).
posted by Paul Slade at 1:17 AM
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The essay does touch of Dahl's racist views.
Damn it. I meant, the essay does touch on Dahl's racist views. "Touch of Dahl's racist views" might make it sound like I was saying Tibees' video was a bit racist too, as in "the essay does (have a) touch of Dahl's racist views," which wasn't what I meant at all.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 2:14 AM
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Here's a link to the Dahl story [pdf]
posted by chavenet at 3:38 AM
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Hello! MeFi's own Roald Dahl expert here. I've given talks at tech conferences in recent years and mentioned this story myself. It's certainly effective with that creepy ending, but I don't think we need to give Dahl too much credit as a prophet. He was an inventor himself (most notably of a life-saving valve that was put into the heads of thousands of children) and it was a theme he returned to in his stories a lot. After all, he also wrote a story where a man's brain (and one eyeball) was preserved and kept alive post-death; one where a man invents a microphone that allows him to hear plants (and how they feel pain); and of course one about a candy maker who invents an elevator that flies into space. None of those came true. He just got lucky with the really bitter one about the publishing industry. (I always found it interesting that the protagonist here is called Adolph Knipe, when one of Dahl's publisher's was Alfred Knopf. It seems unlikely to be a coincidence!)
posted by web-goddess at 4:28 AM
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I love Roald Dahl, such a weirdo. ❤️
posted by tiny frying pan at 8:14 AM
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Roald taught this young child about vermicious knids and giant peaches.
posted by whatevernot at 2:39 PM
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Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine was similar era and concept. Feed a machine all the books, get essays out.
posted by funkaspuck at 4:19 PM
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Calvino also did a note perfect prediction of LLMs in if on a winter's night
posted by Sebmojo at 10:45 PM
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On the theme of 'surprising things Roald Dahl had a hand in' — recently picked up (and watched for the first time) a 4K copy of The Dam Busters at Barnes & Noble. The 'making of' featurette noted there had been an earlier (failed) attempt to produce a movie of the original mission, with a screenplay by Roald Dahl.
Even though Dahl was not involved in the movie described in the IMDB link, that link describes a jarring bit of casual racism from the era of its production.
posted by rochrobbb at 4:51 AM
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A 28-year-old Roald Dahl walks beside 45-year-old Ernest Hemingway in London in 1944 :P
posted by kliuless at 1:23 AM
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