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| Image by Maklay62 from Pixabay |
Welcome to the next edition of the Fiction Predictions series. Today I take us back seventy years to a story written by the prolific but controversial author Roald Dahl. While Dahl’s personal legacy is riddled with documented bigotry and cruelty, his 1953 short story 'The Great Automatic Grammatizator' remains an uncanny structural prediction of the modern AI crisis.
The Grammatizator
Long before computers could produce text, Roald Dahl wrote about a gifted mechanic who realises that the human mind follows fixed, predictable rules when writing fiction. He builds a massive mechanical engine called the "Great Automatic Grammatizator." By pulling a few levers to select a genre, tone, and plot structure, the machine churns out a flawless, prize-winning in fifteen minutes.
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| Grammatizator |
But that's not all Dalh predicted.
Echoing today's concerns over writers losing their livelihoods, the machine in Dahl’s story becomes so efficient that it buys out all the human authors in the world. Real writers are forced to sign licensing agreements, giving up their names so the machine can publish automated content under their brands. It ends with a chilling plea from a starving human writer struggling not to sign the contract—a mirror image of modern creatives fighting against AI scraping and automated text.
Is this a step to full simulation?
Notice that while stories like The Matrix or The 13th Floor predicted the world as a simulation, Roald Dahl predicted the industrial economics of it. He foresaw that long before a computer would simulate an entire universe, it would first simulate the human mind, a writer’s mind... and then an actor’s face, just to save a studio money. If you aren't convinced, Google AI-generated vertical short drama. Or, just watch some on Insta.
The Death of the Author 2.0
It seems that Dahl predicted a whole new level of Barthes's death of the author.
Literary theorist Roland Barthes argued that the intentions and biography of an author should not be used to determine the "true" meaning of a text. Instead of a creator who precedes the work, Barthes introduced the "scriptor"—someone born simultaneously with the text and who mixes pre-existing cultural codes, languages, and quotations to create story. In this way, the text is born in the reader's mind, that endpoint being the "true" interpretation and nuance of the work.
Is our future one where an algorithm generates the text, senses the cultural temperature, and sanitises the output in real-time, all at once?
While pondering that, let's take a moment to look at the impulse of the "powers that be" to retroactively edit human thought for mass consumption.
The Posthumous Edit: From Plato to Puffin
Throughout history, we can see a powerful impulse to step in and 'correct' human expression. For example, in the early Christian era, scholars systematically sanitised Plato—particularly his exploration of Eros and the nature of love—to align with the dominant religious orthodoxy of the time.
Fast forward to 2023, and an example of the same process occurs. Long after Roald Dahl's death, publishers utilised sensitivity editors to scrub his catalogue, swapping out language regarding appearance and gender to fit contemporary cultural standards (markets). This isn't an argument for right or wrong. It's a statement about authorial control.
Dahl himself was a figure whose real-world prejudices are well-documented. Yet, here is the irony: in his work, 'The Great Automatic Grammatizator,' he predicted a future where a machine would automate and curate literature. Decades later, his own human thoughts became the target of that same systematic, corporate curation.
Fear of Human Complexity
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| AI Bolggers Vs. Human Bloggers |
In Plato’s case, the establishment feared that his nuanced views of desire and love (Eros) didn't fit the strict moral binary of the early Church.
In Dahl’s case, modern publishers seemed to fear that his raw, unvarnished, and often unpleasant language wouldn't fit a modern corporate streaming ecosystem.
In both cases, the story was changed to sell the concept.
Was the Grammatizator Inevitable?
Given the human propensity toward power over (ironically the antithesis of Love according to Plato) and Barthes thesis of the death of the author, was Dalh's story of the Grammatizator and link to AI an inevitable artifact of the human mind, or one man's ability to foresee the future?
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
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About Kim Falconer
The Amassia Series
Kim Falconer, also writing as AK Wilder, has released Crown of Bones, a YA Epic Fantasy with Curse of Shadows as book 2 in the series.
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| Quantum Enchantment |
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Read Blood and Water, a PNR alt history that will leave you questioning every natural disaster ever endured.
“There is no doubt fiction makes a better job of the truth.”
