He would learn better,
This is a book by an author on a journey.
“In the next to last chapter he diverges into a criticism of socialists’ view of a soulless, mechanized future in which The Machine rules over humanity that seems bizarre from a 21st-century viewpoint, not really even good science fiction.”
Actually considering the predominance of AI technology today not such science fiction any more IMHO. He actually made an aside that could herald driverless cars.
True enough, but what his machine chapter really reminded me of was Metropolis. He was actually criticizing socialists of his time for painting that sort of picture of the future and alienating people with it. By the time he wrote 1984 he'd come to suspect that it wasn't all that inaccurate after all. Exactly as you say, an author on a journey.
But man, could he ever lay it to his fellow socialists:
The ordinary man may not flinch from a dictatorship of the proletariat, if you offer it tactfully; offer him a dictatorship of the prigs and he gets ready to fight.
A thing that today's campus socialists should keep in mind...