The narrative is structured as a retrospective museum placard for a fictional exhibit titled "Little Defective Adults—Attitudes Toward Children from 1700 to 1950" . Through this unique framing device, Chiang explores the psychological consequences of automating human connection, the rigid rationalism of Victorian-era science, and the generational impact of tech-mediated parenting.
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To prove his theory, Dacey attempts to raise his own son, Lionel, with the machine. Decades later, Lionel raises an adopted infant exclusively using the robotic nanny to vindicate his father. The narrative is structured as a retrospective museum
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In the context of Victorian England, the "Nanny" was already a professionalized figure—a worker subject to market forces. Dacey’s patent attempts to resolve the "servant problem" by removing the human element entirely. The machine offers a sanitized form of care: it does not tire, it does not judge, and it possesses no moral agency of its own. However, as this paper argues, the machine’s defining feature—its inability to deviate from its programming—is precisely where the horror of the device lies. To prove his theory, Dacey attempts to raise