For Reason's June 2024 special issue on AI, all of our brief reviews involve AI in some form or another. Of course, we decided to ask an AI to write one of the reviews. Since X's AI is named Grok, after the term coined by sci-fi author Robert Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land, it was only natural that we'd ask Grok to write a review of another Heinlein novel, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress. See what Grok wrote for us below.

In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert Heinlein masterfully crafts a gripping tale of revolution and liberation on a lunar colony. The 1966 novel follows the colony's intense struggle for independence from Earth, led by the charismatic Manuel Garcia O'Kelly and supported by a fascinating AI supercomputer, Mike. Heinlein's unique portrayal of Mike highlights his destructive potential but ultimately emphasizes his choice to aid the revolutionaries.

Through the political, social, and military aspects of the Earth-Moon conflict, Heinlein delves deep into themes of liberation and revolution, weaving in his own thought-provoking philosophies about law, society, and frontier libertarianism. This sci-fi gem offers a captivating narrative, exploring the very nature of freedom and the role technology plays in shaping our destiny. In the end, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress reminds us that even a supercomputer like Mike can have a heart—or at least a well-programmed sense of humor.

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Inflation stressing you out? Making you wish you had just a touch of nicotine in your system? Unfortunately, that'll cost a lot. While prices economywide have risen 3.1 percent in the last year, cigarette prices have jumped 8 percent. On top of federal and state taxes that often make up half the price of a pack, tobacco companies tend to raise their prices faster than inflation to make up for declining sales volume. These and the rest of the numbers in the Reason Sindex use data from November 2023.

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