How do we connect a child to technology?

We are now onto the fifth short story of nine in Ted Chiang’s collection Exhalations. This one is a very short one at only a couple of pages, but despite its brief length, it explores some of the most fundamental issues facing us as a society today: technology, children, love, and the meaning of connection as all these elements fuse together. It was not my favorite story so far, but it is certainly interesting, especially in light of the previous short story Lifecycle of Software Objects (which in case you missed it, you can read more analysis here). […]

Reading Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny –
Chiang has constructed a creative framing device here: we observe a peculiar machine — Dacey’s Patent Automatic Nanny — in historical retrospective within the context of an exhibit entitled “Little Defective Adults — Attitudes Toward Children 1700 to 1950.” The entire story is essentially the museum placard next to the mechanical artifact describing its background and how it was designed to raise an infant without the need for a human nanny. […]

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