Three years later, a dystopian future much like the one Wiener had imagined was brought to life in the pages of Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel. Player Piano described an automated economy in which industrial machines managed by a tiny technical elite did virtually all the work, while the vast majority of the population faced a meaningless existence and a hopeless future. Vonnegut, who went on to achieve legendary status as an author, continued to believe in the relevance of his 1952 novel throughout his life, writing decades later that it was becoming “more timely with each passing day.”6
