Player Piano doesn’t end on a triumphant, optimistic note. Nothing major about this futuristic, fairly dystopian society has changed. Machines still run the country, and the class division created by automation is still firmly in place. What’s more, even most of the Ghost Shirt revolutionaries have negated the purpose of their own cause by proving that humans can’t help themselves from seeking out technological progress. The only thing that has changed, then, is that Paul and the other Ghost Shirt leaders challenged the status quo. And though this clearly isn’t enough to bring about comprehensive change, it at least shows the elite class of managers and engineers that they shouldn’t take their power for granted. On a broader level, the novel’s somewhat pessimistic ending implies that progress—and especially
technological progress—is simply a fact of modern life, regardless of whether or not it benefits society.