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The AI built for me by Max Park. Photography by Max Park.

“If everything is automated, how should I spend my leisure time?”

I’m asking an AI, but not Claude or ChatGPT. This one is trained on the works of William Morris, a textile designer during industrialized London, and a socialist who raged against the machine.

And this AI does not live in the cloud, hosted on large data centers; it’s in my home—a small clear box disconnected from the internet or even power. It doesn’t use water or energy from the grid; I turn a hand crank 50 times to power it up and get his response.

Yes, that’s right. It’s an anti-AI AI.

“Ah dear friend, you’ve traded the sweat and toil of a human existence for the luxury of automation,” Morris answers me. “But what of the richness that comes from toil?”

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