This 1955 Asimov short story denounces the obsession with polls during elections
A short story from Isaac Asimov very early on denounced the excesses of a poll democracy where polls are ubiquitous during an election period. Perhaps it would be good, as a tense electoral period approaches, to reread it.
The next French presidential election is for 2022 However, polls are already coming out, going so far as to simulate the second round in advance by including a candidate from extreme right , which has not yet even officially presented itself. This “poll democracy” is a principle deeply rooted in the history of our Western democracies. At each election, polls create news and debates. But the question of their indirect influence is also regularly asked.
70 years ago already, a science fiction writer made fun of this obsession with polls. In 1955, the American Isaac Asimov published the news ” Voted
“.
” Voted “: When the poll directly results in the election
by Philip K. Dick (adapted in the famous movie with Tom Cruise). But the famous writer Isaac Asimov, author of the cycles of
Robots
and of Foundation, had also considered a computer with similar capabilities: Multivac. This computer, which is an artificial intelligence before its time, intervenes in several of the author’s stories, including this news Voted
published in French in 2016 by Le Passager Clandestin editions in a small book of 56 pages. Voted // Source: Le Passager Clandestin
In this news, the entire policy is driven by this machine. ” Multivac already has most of the information it needs to settle elections, both national and municipal ”, explains a character. Multivac literally surveys the company to identify the major trends, the majority opinions. Then the computer designates a person – only one – who is summoned to the computer, because the machine just needs, to complete its survey, “ control certain imponderable attitudes of mind
”.
Multivac will ask this person, a sort of unique voter, a whole series of questions – from the management of household waste to the healthcare system. ” Based on how your brain, heart, hormones and sweat glands are functioning, Multivac will be able to assess with precision the intensity of your feelings on the matter. He will understand these feelings better than you understand them yourself.
”
After having probed the majority opinions in society and then this single voter considered to be the most representative, Multivac appoints the President of the Republic. The poll therefore directly makes the election.
Isaac Asimov extrapolates considerably the logic of poll democracy, thus revealing the underlying absurdity that may appear to us in this approach to elections. Written in 1955, the short story already applied to American politics at the time, but remains relevant today for most Western democracies. This extrapolation offers a necessary relativization of sounding mechanics. Should it be abused to the point that simulations do not poison the entire public debate? Do polls not in themselves risk guiding the results? Science fiction, without answering these questions, allows in any case to take a step back, and to ask eminently necessary questions.
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