Doctor Paul Proteus, a high-ranking and extremely intelligent manager at Ilium Works, lives in a world where engineers and managers form the social elite. After World War III, in which the United States depended heavily of technical know-how to win, reliance on technology had veered to the extreme, mechanizing almost every sector of the labor force and rendering human labor just short of obsolete. A consequence of this is a better standard of living due to increased efficiency. However, in the eyes of Dr. Paul Proteus and the masses, this results in a lack of purpose and a painful dissatisfaction with life.

The plot ramps up as Paul increasingly begins to have doubts about society and his role in it. Ed Finnerty, a former colleague at Ilium Works, arrives into town and barely hides his disdain for society, which interests Paul and confirms his own feelings. The story reaches its climax with a countrywide rebellion coordinated by the Ghost Shirt Society, a diverse group of socially marginalized misfits led by the Protestant reverend James J. Lasher.

Top officials catch wind of the Ghost Shirt Society’s existence and blackmail Paul into infiltrating and taking the group down. Fittingly, the secret group does recruit the protagonist and forces him to be the figurehead of the movement. The climax happens when their special rebellion finally takes place — chapters across the United States declare a march to destroy the automatic factories. Things do not go as planned, however, as various cities swiftly quell the various groups, and the leaders of the Ghost Short Society eventually turn themselves in.

This novel carries unsettling parallels to the rise of Artificial Intelligence. The seemingly exponential growth of this industry, seeking to secure shareholder value and rake in billions of dollars for the technocratic elite, matches the post WWIII atmosphere in Player Piano in its manic forward-moving inertia. The vast layoffs of employees from big firms such as Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, and IBM resemble the beginning stages of the society Vonnegut painted over 70 years ago.

More obvious in today’s society is the capacity for surveillance and state-sanctioned violence. AI-powered software is being used by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to surveil users who demonstrate “negative sentiment” towards the agency on social media. AI-assisted Kill Chain predicted technology is being deployed in critical global combat zones to kill political targets with minimal human oversight while also killing civilians in the process.

In the end, technology is ultimately just a tool. It can be used for good and for bad. Are we willing to fight and uphold that distinction?