Ray Bradbury's "There Will Come Soft Rains"

This short story was written in 1950 and discusses life in the "future", which is a common topic for that time period.  Predictions of future "smart houses" were almost an obsession of the era, with exhibits at the World's Fair showing self-cleaning kitchens with machines that cook, toasters that pop up from the counter, etc.  It was believed that these would be something of the norm, and every house would be a cookie cutter replica of the next, with technology doing all the work and the human inhabitants relaxing and enjoying.

The story begins with this kind of description of a house.  It has an artificial intelligence that has learned the schedules of the family members, and is trying its hardest to go about the day as normal, doing its usual tasks at the specific times as the day goes on.  However, the residents of the house are not there to receive or participate in any of the daily tasks, such as eating the breakfast prepared for them, or taking a bath that was drawn for them.  At first, it just seems that maybe the house is malfunctioning, or the residents are just away on vacation, but then the story reveals that the house is the last one left, with an apocalyptic desert surrounding it.  The residents of the house only exist now as silhouettes on the exterior walls of the house in the form of charred outlines of where their bodies were during an (probably nuclear) explosion.  The article, then, took a much eerier turn, exemplifying that technology can go on to function without us.  At the end of the story, the house burned down, and even as the fire spread and enveloped the house, the various technologies continued to carry on, trying their best until they physically couldn't anymore.

The story was pretty depressing for several reasons.  One, because it took place in a post-apocalyptic time with none of our species anywhere to be seen, and two, because I found the technology to have a personality, and it was upsetting for it to be in turmoil.  The house and its various technological mechanisms (such as the cleaning mice) were often personified by Bradbury, allowing them to seem more human-like, despite their automated dispatch of services and precision of every task.  At the beginning, it seemed like the humans were taking advantage of the technology by not being present when the house performed its tasks for them.  Then, once you found out that the humans were dead, the house seemed extremely loyal and efficient when it continued to perform its tasks as normal with such thoroughness even though no one responded to them.  And then when it was burning down, the extent of its loyalty and motivation to be helpful was truly shown.  The house only meant to facilitate the lives of the humans and tried so hard to do its duties, yet it was undeservingly smote by nature.  Strangely, as a reader, I do not share this same empathy for the humans.  It seemed that somehow, maybe they deserved their fate.  The moral I grasp is that no matter how advanced technology becomes, it is just a pawn in regards to human intentions and control.