M
Marshall Brain
marshallbrain.com · Personal blog · on HN since 2008
Marshall Brain writes about automation, robots, and the economy, and is the author of the science fiction story Manna.
What HN saysHN links Manna in AI and management debates, with some calling it a strong response and others dismissing its portrayal of workers as naive.
333HN people shared it
286linked it in comments
63stories submitted
297story points
3 months agolast shared
2008people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Manna – AI Utopia or Dystopia? By Marshall Brain156 people · 28 points · first shared 2008 · 1 comments on HN
- 2Manna – Two Views of Humanity's Future (2003)132 people · 105 points · first shared 2020 · 25 comments on HN
- 3Manna – Two Views of Humanity's Future35 people · 11 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Robotic Nation15 people · 10 points · first shared 2009 · 3 comments on HN
- 5Manna: Two Views of Humanity's Future9 people · 11 points · first shared 2011 · discussion on HN
- 6Robotic Freedom7 people · 4 points · first shared 2008 · discussion on HN
- 7How to Make a Million Dollars5 people · 99 points · first shared 2008 · 32 comments on HN
- 8Robots in 2015 (2011)5 people · 8 points · first shared 2008 · 2 comments on HN
- 9Manna – 2 views of a human future4 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 10Manna43 people · first shared 2013
- 11On telling my son that he is a geek2 people · 10 points · first shared 2011 · 7 comments on HN
- 12Teaching your kids how to write computer programs2 people · 2 points · first shared 2010 · discussion on HN
- 13The Case for Euthanizing Everyone at Age 652 people · 2 points · first shared 2024 · 2 comments on HN
- 14Imagining Elon Musk’s Million-Person Mars Colony2 people · 1 points · first shared 2022 · discussion on HN
- 15Robotic nation2 people · first shared 2020
What HN people wrote when they linked it
_DeadFred_ · 2026-02-26
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
(probably killing a dead horse posting this again in this thread but it's the best response)
mjr00 · 2026-01-26
> A great example of this is here: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
This is a piece of science fiction and has its own (inaccurate, IMO) view on how minimum wage McDonald's employees would react to a robot manager. Extrapolating this to real life is naive at best.
alexpotato · 2026-01-26
You sometimes hear people say "I mean, we can't just give an AI a bunch of money/important decisions and expect it do ok" but is already happening and has been for years.
Examples:
- Algorithmic trading: I once embedded on an Options trading desk. The head of desk mentioned that he didn't really know what the PnL was during trading hours b/c the swings were so big that only the computer algos knew if the decisions were correct.
- Autopilot: planes can now land themselves to an accuracy that is so precise that the front landing gear wheels "thud" as they go over the runway center markers.
and this has been true for at least 10 years.
In other words, if the above is possible then we are not far off from some kind of "expert system" that runs a business unit (which may be all robots or a mix of robots and people).
A great example of this is here: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
mmh0000 · 2025-08-12
LLM as Management is probably not a great future either[1]
[1] https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
krasin · 2025-06-04
The story is amazing and officially available online: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
bmn__ · 2025-02-26
> Does Earth become a giant favela ruled by a dozen trillionaires with a tiny supporting bourgeoisie?
Yes. SF author imagines it would be more efficient to concentrate the proles of into a small agglomeration of buildings. It's easier for the policebots to keep track of the economically worthless underclass that way, you see. https://marshallbrain.com/manna4#:~:text=terrafoam
Wouldn't you rather have an Earth where all of mankind shares in the fruits of automation of labour and everyone can live a blessed live? Read the last few chapters of the story.
varjag · 2025-01-21
“It’s not unusual, except that Manna is telling you exactly what to do every second of every day. If it asks you to go to the back and get merchandise, it tells you exactly where to walk to go get it. And here is the weirdest part — I never see another employee the entire day. The way it makes me walk, I never run into anyone else. I can go for a full shift and never see another employee. Even our breaks are staggered. Everyone takes their breaks alone. We all arrive at staggered times. It’s like Manna is trying to totally eliminate human interaction on the job.”
All described in prescient classic: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
pgl · 2024-11-24
He was such an amazing guy. We got to interview him on our tiny podcast[1] after we reached out and he so happily joined us for half an hour. His book, Manna (which is $0.99 to download from Amazon[2] or free on his website[3]) is still one of the most fascinating and interesting visions of the future that I've come across (although I don't totally agree it's the only reasonable option).
What a loss.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA5v2cfJp1o
[2] https://www.amazon.co.uk/Manna-Two-Visions-Humanitys-Future-ebook/dp/B…
[3] https://marshallbrain.com/manna
Edit: Fixed "free to download from Amazon" - it's not
abraxas · 2024-11-01
Wall-E in the best case, Manna (https://marshallbrain.com/manna) in the most likely scenario.
But I'm a pessimist.
pixl97 · 2023-04-08
Heh, I see we're following the Manna timeline
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
qgin · 2023-03-23
Always a classic short story on the topic:
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
johnkpaul · 2022-12-06
Reminds me of the great short story Manna. It has a much more idealistic and more be the book definition of “universal”.
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
buffet_overflow · 2022-10-20
how lovely it is to work with Manna, the automated store manager.
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
monkeydust · 2022-01-18
Every time I read one of the 'automation' pieces I think of the book Manna. If you haven't read it do so, great and short read available here:
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
witchuer · 2021-09-02
It reminds me of this great short-story called Manna[0]. I really like the idea of complete transparency and no anonymity.
[0]: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
fouc · 2021-08-02
The title of this totally made me think of this classic story:
Manna – Two Views of Humanity’s Future: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
In this story, the human essentially becomes a robot, with just headphones and a "todo app" telling the human what to do every step of the way
diveanon · 2021-06-17
I feel like Jeff Bezos read Manna and thought it was a great idea.
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
hodder · 2020-11-30
My favorite of all time is The Most Dangerous Game. I just really enjoyed it as a kid, and continue to think about it 25 years later.
https://marshallbrain.com/manna is also a great one.
macd · 2020-10-22
There's a great short story called Manna that builds on this idea: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
brainbag · 2020-10-19
That's what I thought of as well. I first read this short story a very long time ago and it's still something I think of often. For those who aren't acquainted, I think it's worth a read: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1
zatel · 2020-07-27
One of my favorite scifi short stories is Manna by Michael Brain (creator of howstuffworks.com)
It two futures based around easy industrial production/ai and feels closer to reality then it did a few years ago.
Here is the link for anyone interested: https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
kortex · 2020-01-17
Exactly. Even if wealth is shared, and all humans technically receive everything they need to live life, that does not mean the world is avoiding assorted moral hazards, such as "human zoo" condition. Nor that the human condition on the whole is optimal.
Also relevant, this short story is a favorite of HN:
https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
theseareusernam · 2019-04-26
This reminds me of 'Manna', by Marshall Brain, a sci-fi short story in which an automated, AI-driven management system (Manna) gradually takes on more and more responsibility and authority over the world of humans in the workplace, leading to dystopian consequences. There's a lot more to it than that (I'm bad at blurbs) but it's highly worth a read.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Once again, fiction predicts reality..
drewg123 · 2019-02-05
We're heading toward a future where more and more is automated and there is less and less room for non-creative work. Let's face it, not everybody can be creative in a way that is lucrative. Do we really want to doom more and more of the population to a subsistence income, while more and more of the gains due to automation go to a shrinking segment of the population? I tend to think that a generous UBI is really the only sensible thing to do.
In case anybody has not read it, Mana, is a short story based on an extrapolation of this kind of rise of automation. I highly recommend it: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
amykyta · 2018-10-07
Your comment brings to mind a fascinating short story that follows this idea: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
I am pretty sure I found it on HN a few years ago.
thinkingkong · 2018-05-14
Reminds me of this excellent short story called Manna[1]
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Pete_D · 2018-03-16
I'm unsure Manna is the best anti-social-credit parable, given that one of the prerequisites for being a member of its utopia is having the government AIs surveil you 24/7 through a brainstem implant. (http://marshallbrain.com/manna7.htm, search for "They watch everything?")
sf_rob · 2017-10-17
"Manna"[1] as well. While I don't like the writing style, I love the story. Especially since it shows AI gutting middle management in an interesting way before robotics is mature enough to do all the dextrous tasks.
1 http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
shiftpgdn · 2017-07-18
My cynical view of this is that it's the final death knell for industrial work. Why hire someone with experience or talent when you just need a warm body to follow the ikea instructions and turn screws?
It reminds me of the dystopian short story "Manna"[1] where all workers wear a Google Glass like device and an AI controls them.
[1] http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
danjoc · 2017-05-29
In truth, we already have UBI. It is social security. Think about it: a country full of fixed income retirees. Sounds great, doesn't it?
Currently that's not working out though. The retirement age is going up, not down. It's too expensive to give money directly and let people figure it out. The UBI end game is something like the terrafoam housing from Manna.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna4.htm
Put all the UBIs in a nice neat little box where we can forget about them, like we do with prisoners. Maybe even add sedatives and birth control to the water, because we certainly don't want resistance or more of them. We'll probably even call them that. UBIs. Universal basic inmates.