In a future where technology has advanced to the point where humans can undergo "optimization" to rid themselves of emotions and increase their mental functions, one man decides to cling to his humanity in an effort to atone for his sins and appreciate the beauty of being human.

After being laid off from his job, a man struggles to find meaning in a utopian world where all of his basic needs are already met for him.

All his life, a man creates machines to compensate for his idiocy, but, over time, the machines he creates lose respect for him and treat him poorly, causing him to lose all hope. A single machine opens his eyes to the idiocy of others, changing his perspective and giving him back hope and joy.

In an alternate Great Depressions NYC, a Jewish foreman investigates the true outputs of his factory as his eccentric German employer seeks to use an emerging idea called "industrivism," or the improvement of the human body through technology, created by a bored pulp writer, to recruit workers to fulfill his machinations. Without realizing, a pulp writer in an alternative 1920s New York City invents the idea of "industrivism" that earns her an audience with an eccentric German businessman. Meanwhile, a Jewish foreman investigate the true purpose of the factory and unearths his employer's dark past and future machinations.

When a serial writer decides that he can’t take more of his monotonous life, he destroys his copywriter and leaves his domestic prison to protest the rise of the machines.

In the year 2033, a reviewer for a novel written by an algorithmic recreation of Isaac Asimov’s brain believes the work acts as a reverse Turing Test, prodding the self-consciousness of its human readers through its unorthodox construction. According to a think piece written by a fictitious reviewer in the year 2033, a novel written by a simulation of Isaac Asimov's brain is capable of interrogating humans about their own self-consciousness.

In this metafiction, the many lives of an unnamed man are scrutinized as he passes through millennia.

A man, who has genius ideas that he shares with others to make him rich, is contacted by a rogue AI that is comprised of hijacked lobster brains. At the same time, his IRS-tax-collector fiancé tracks him down and schemes to rope him back into their engagement.

A man who is chronically late in a society where lateness is fatal takes up an alter ego that seeks to convince people that you shouldn't be a slave to your schedule.

In Michigan, a recently divorced professor reflects on what it means to exist, first alone in his empty apartment and then alongside his student in a mission to find a missing girl.