Review of “The Success Machine” (1960)
Henry Slesar (writer).
Read in 2025.
At General Products, executives trust the Personnelovac to evaluate efficiency.
It’s a triple-edged satire! The computer, named after the UNIVAC of the 1950s, correctly identifies a wealth of human weaknesses in a setting where easy access to artificial intelligence has brought those weaknesses to the fore. AI is making people cognitively lazy at the same time as the anti-intellectual slogans of the private sector further depress their intelligence; an intensely relatable problem at the time of my reading in 2025. At the third edge of the satire, the computer itself is also flawed, in that it is too critical, recommending even its own termination.