Of Cranks and Code: Generative AI’s Satirical Beginnings in Gulliver’s Travels

Today, we must ensure that AI tools are used thoughtfully, balancing their potential with a critical awareness of their limitations, ethical risks, and societal impact.

In 1976, my father bought me a copy of “Gulliver’s Travels,” and I could hardly wait for a Sunday when we would sit together and dive into its pages. As a ten-year-old, I was captivated by the adventures of Captain Gulliver, his incredible journeys to fantastical lands, and the whimsical characters he encountered. Little did I know, nestled among the tales of tiny Lilliputians and giant Brobdingnagians was a passage that would one day feel deeply personal to me. At the time, I remained blissfully ignorant of the satire and completely overlooked Swift’s peculiar description of a wooden machine—a contraption designed to generate sentences mechanically. It seemed inconsequential then, but that forgotten passage would echo throughout my career in a way I could never have imagined.

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Imagine a wooden machine, full of moving parts, designed to shuffle words into sentences randomly. Three centuries ago (1726, to be precise), the satirical genius Jonathan Swift described this contraption in his novel Gulliver’s Travels. Tucked away in the fictional Grand Academy of Lagado, found in Chapter 5 of the third part of Gulliver’s Travels, “A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan”, this quirky device promised to generate knowledge and insight, all through the random combination of words. It was a joke – Swift’s way of poking fun at the impractical experiments of scholars in his day. But in an unexpected twist, this imaginary machine foreshadowed something astonishing: the advent of modern Generative AI.

Today, Large Language Models (LLMs) operate on a principle that resembles Swift’s satirical invention. These systems, powered by massive datasets and advanced algorithms, produce human-like text by combining words in patterns they’ve learned. What Swift intended as humour has evolved into one of the most transformative technologies of our time. Yet, this transformation raises intriguing questions: How do we bridge the gap between randomness and meaning? And what does Swift’s playful critique teach us about the promises and pitfalls of AI today?

The Machine in the Academy of Lagado

In the Academy of Lagado, Gulliver encounters professors and scientists engaged in peculiar and often impractical experiments. One such invention is a “frame” or machine designed to generate sentences and ideas, which can then supposedly lead to the discovery of all possible knowledge.

 “It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superfices was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered, on every square, with paper pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions; but without any order. The professor then desired me “to observe; for he was going to set his engine at work.” The pupils, at his command, took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed round the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads, to read the several lines softly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn, the engine was so contrived, that the words shifted into new places, as the square bits of wood moved upside down.

Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labour; and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio, already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials, to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however, might be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames in Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common their several collections.”

Note some key steps:

  1. Random Combination: The levers are turned, rearranging the words in the frame into a new sequence.
  2. Selection of Meaningful Sentences: A team of assistants observes the output and identifies sequences that make sense or convey meaning.
  3. Recording: These meaningful combinations are dictated (“to the four remaining boys“) and scribed to generate future knowledge.

Satirical Implications

Swift’s portrayal of the machine is a blend of humour and sharp critique, reflecting his scepticism about certain intellectual endeavours of his time while inadvertently predicting the evolution of ideas in computational creativity.

  • Critique of Academia: Swift uses this machine to lampoon the tendency in academia and science to pursue overly abstract or impractical projects, neglecting real-world applications.
  • Mockery of Reductionism: The machine mocks the idea that creativity or profound insight can emerge solely from mechanical processes or random generation.

Interestingly, this fictional machine anticipates modern concepts like procedural generation, machine learning, and even the idea of GenAI algorithms (Large Language Models) designed to generate text, offering a lens through which we can evaluate their role, limitations, and societal implications. 

1. Critique of Overreliance on Mechanistic Processes

Swift’s Satire: The machine embodies the absurdity of assuming that random combinations of words can produce meaningful insights without human discernment.

LLMs Today:

  • LLMs generate text based on statistical patterns in large datasets, not inherent understanding. This often results in convincing outputs lacking depth, coherence, or factual accuracy.
  • Society’s growing reliance on AI to generate content sometimes mirrors blind faith in the mechanical generation of knowledge Swift critiques.
  • Example: Automated news articles, legal summaries, or creative writing generated by LLMs may appear meaningful but lack originality or critical insight.

2. Need for Human Oversight

Swift’s Satire: The students observing the machine symbolize the necessity of human judgment to extract meaningful results from random output.

LLMs Today:

  • Human supervision is crucial to validate, refine, and contextualize AI-generated content.
  • Issues like bias, misinformation, or ethical concerns in LLM outputs highlight the need for informed human intervention, just as Swift’s fictional machine required students to sift through gibberish.

3. Illusion of Profound Insight

Swift’s Satire: The machine mocks the idea that profound insights can arise from the random recombination of words.

LLMs Today:

  • LLMs create the illusion of deep understanding by producing text that sounds profound or coherent, even when it’s superficial or nonsensical.
  • Users may overestimate the intelligence or creativity of LLMs, mistaking pattern recognition for genuine innovation.
  • Example: AI-generated poetry or philosophical musings can impress readers but often lack the intentionality or depth of human creativity.

4. Commercialization and Hype

Swift’s Satire: The Machine is a satirical dig at the spectacle and promise of innovation without substance.

LLMs Today:

  • The commercialization of AI technologies often involves significant hype, with companies exaggerating the capabilities of LLMs.
  • Like the professors in Lagado, some AI researchers and businesses might prioritize the novelty of their creations over practical or ethical considerations.
  • Example: The rush to release advanced LLMs without robust safeguards against misuse, such as generating fake news or deepfakes.

In Jonathan Swift’s words from the novel “although it were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal inventions from each other, who had thereby at least this advantage, that it became a controversy which was the right owner; yet I would take such caution, that he should have the honour entire, without a rival.”

Conclusion

Swift’s satire is a timeless critique of blind faith in mechanistic knowledge generation, warning against mistaking surface-level results for genuine insight. While LLMs represent an extraordinary technological achievement, they exemplify many of the same pitfalls Swift humorously exposed centuries ago. 

Every one knew how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labour, might write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, laws, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study.” 

Today, we must ensure that AI tools are used thoughtfully, balancing their potential with a critical awareness of their limitations, ethical risks, and societal impact.

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Gurbans Chatwal
Gurbans Chatwal, Vice President of FinTech Product Innovation and Artificial Intelligence at Fiserv, leads transformative fintech programs driven by his lifelong passion for science and technology. Inspired by early moments of stargazing and building circuits with his father, Gurbans has built a diverse career across global IT, startups, and education, founding four startups and championing innovation in AI and deep learning. As a business coach and founder of SARAL (Science and Robotics Action Learning), he empowers individuals and cultivates the next generation of technologists.
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