Player Piano

In a near-future America, automation has taken over virtually all productive work. Society has split in two: a technocracy of engineers and managers who oversee the machines, and a mass of economically superfluous men and women — housed, fed, but stripped of the meaning work once provided. Vonnegut's first novel, written after his years at General Electric. The title comes from the player piano — the instrument that plays without a pianist. The founding literary diagnosis of post-work society, written seventy years before generative AI.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was an American novelist who wrote works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, such as [*Slaughterhouse-Five* (1969)][1], [*Cat's Cradle* (1963)][2], and [*Breakfast of Champions* (1973)][3]. He was known for his humanist beliefs as well as being honorary president of the American Humanist Association. He is widely considered one of the most influential American wr …