Has 200 Years of Science Fiction Prepared Us for AI?
It was Darwin who first explained why humans should be afraid of their hyper-intelligent machines.
Bringing human-like creatures to life never turns out well in the stories.
Photographer: Dick Loek/Toronto Star via Getty Images
The arrival of a new generation of artificial-intelligence chatbots and apps has fueled hysteria that humans may soon become obsolete, or worse, the victims of a Skynet scenario, in which our AI creations become sentient and turn against us. Even the biggest AI boosters recently called for a moratorium on further research until we can better assess the risks.
The perils posed by today’s technology may well be new and noteworthy, but our anxiety is not. For two centuries, humankind has fretted about what might happen if we endow our creations with intelligence, fearing they will go rogue, if not replace us entirely.