Okay so I was talking to Mr Carlson on Facebook a few minutes ago, discussing the Mario Savio quote in it and I wondered, could it be inspired from the machine dominance/artificiality in mankind, in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1932)? I think I explained that right.
If you look at it in the context of the whole speech, he wasn't referring to a literal machine. It's about protesting and civil disobedience.
On that case, I think it's even linked even more considering the civil disobedience (right to freedom theme) in BNW.