Rhetorizor

In Dick's 1964 novel, speechwriter Joseph Adams uses a 'rhetorizor' to generate political speeches. The device accepts natural-language prompts describing the desired argument or topic and produces coherent, persuasive paragraphs formatted for delivery. The machine is capable but not autonomous — its output quality depends on the specificity and clarity of the prompt it receives. Adams discovers, as millions would rediscover with ChatGPT in 2022, that vague prompts produce vague output and that effective use of the machine requires what would later be called prompt engineering. Dick understood the dependency structure: the machine amplifies the user's intention without substituting for it. But he also understood the corrosive second-order effect: Adams's reliance on the rhetorizor erodes his own capacity to write. The tool that was designed to augment gradually replaces, and the replacement is so gradual that Adams does not notice until he attempts to compose without the machine and discovers the facility is gone.