I’d like to tell you a little story.

While I’m not contractually banned from writing sports takes at NR, it would be a shame to get fired before starting my seventh year here. Instead, I’d like to tell you a little story.

According to Hans Christian Andersen, many years ago, the emperor of China had a magnificent palace and garden. But those who came to see it didn’t remark on the porcelain walls or incredible flowers. No, they marveled at a small brown bird, a nightingale, which was listened to with great delight by a poor fisherman and a little kitchen maid. When the emperor discovered this bird, he requested that it come and sing for him in his throne room — which the little bird did.

So pleased was the emperor by the bird’s performance that he ordered a golden cage to be made for it, and each day it was allowed to fly outside — but only with silken cords tied around its legs, each held by an attendant. This went on for some time, until one day, a gift arrived from the emperor of Japan. It was a golden nightingale, as glittering as the real one was brown and plain, and from its throat came the nightingale’s song, cleverly created by intricate mechanics. The emperor declared it a wonder, and planned for the two birds to sing a duet. Unsurprisingly, the performance went poorly, and in the general hubbub after the event, the real nightingale slipped unseen out the window.

Unperturbed, the emperor declared the mechanical bird “High Imperial Minstrel of the Bedside Table, Class One,” and over the next year, he and his court came to know the bird’s melody by heart as they listened to it almost continuously. Until one fateful day, that is, when something inside the bird snapped, leaving the court in desolation. While its delicate mechanics were patched up, the birdsong was now played only once a year for fear of complete loss.

Five years later, the emperor is fatally ill. His attendants have all left him, and Death hovers over his bed. In pain and fear, the emperor cries to the golden nightingale to sing and save him, but the bird is silent. Suddenly, “the loveliest song rang out.” The real nightingale had returned.

Machines aren’t evil. In fact, they are a boon to society in countless ways. I’m grateful for hot water, A/C, the ability to FaceTime my nephew, and planes that fly to the Holy Land. I can, even though I dislike them, see a case for fast-food kiosks. But when it comes to art, sports, music, and other endeavors of our culture, use of machines should be very carefully considered. Think about what AI is doing to the art world right now. And how professors are pulling their hair out over students’ use of ChatGPT to write papers. Sure, AI and automation can make some tasks easier, but at what cost?

Some people are upset that MLB hasn’t fully adopted the automated ball-strike system that is making an appearance in the minor leagues, and there is certainly plenty to be said for fairness and the desire to be precise. But if you want fairness in sports, you’re better off watching robots play on a computer screen. For just as an AI-constructed “painting” removes the soul of the work, so can an infallible automated system remove the soul of the game.

To return to our story, the nightingale barters with Death for the emperor’s life, freeing him with song. The now-healed emperor vows to destroy the golden nightingale, but the real nightingale stops him: “‘Don’t do that, said the nightingale. ‘It has done what it could for you.’”

This debate over AI, automation, and machines is of course much broader than one small post could take on. There are markets and jobs and politics and feelings and breakthroughs and needs all jumbled together and vying for a place in our consideration. And they always will be.

Maybe you agree with Rich Lowry. Or maybe you think I should be done with the sports takes. Regardless, I do hope you enjoyed this little musing on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Nightingale.