Mary Shelly, AI and the End of the World

The world experienced something implausible during the summer of 1816, the cause of which remained a mystery at the time. Gloom and doom enveloped the earth, the sun apparently became dim as if nearing to extinguish and temperatures around the globe dropped significantly. So much so, that the year earned the moniker ‘the year without a summer’. The apocalyptic changes in weather led to famine and starvation causing civil unrest and riots in many parts of Europe. An anonymous astronomer from Bologna, based on his study of the sun, announced the exact date on which the world will end (it was 18th July 1816). A British periodical ran ‘The End of the World’ headline on its cover.

In the midst of these catastrophic events four friends who had gathered in a villa near Lake Geneva with the intentions of outdoor excursions were forced to stay indoors due to incessant rains. To amuse themselves they relied on coming up with horror stories to tell each other, during candlelit afternoons. The anxiety and dread of these paranormal events inspired one of the participants, an 18 year old English girl named Mary Shelly, to weave a story of a science experiment that goes horribly awry, titled ‘Frankenstein’

‘Frankenstein’, which is considered to be the first science fiction novel, is the story of a scientist who sets out to create a human-like creature using raw material from both humans and animals. As the story progresses, the creation gains sentience and realizes that he will always be considered as an abhorrent monster and goes on a path of destruction.

There are many parallels that can be drawn between the creation of the monster by Dr. Victor Frankenstein and the work being done on the development of AI, which includes the ethical complexities and the responsibilities associated with it as well as playing with nature. The Frankenstein's monster, which can be considered as the first artificial being created by a human, echoes similarities to the birth of AI and is similarly mired in human fascination related to apocalypse and end of time.

Even before the development of actual computers and AI, mythologies and fiction narrated tales of sentient beings both in a utopian and even more in dystopian settings often leading to world ending scenarios. One of the earliest examples is an article titled ‘Darwin Among the Machines’ published in 1863 (almost half a century after Mary Shelly’s novel) by Samuel Butler which hypothesized that much like living beings, machines may also have the capability to evolve and may ultimately surpass humans as the paramount species on earth. Butler proselytized the destruction of any such thinking machines. This theme is referenced in the novel ‘Dune’ as an event called the Butlerian Jihad, a war that takes place thousands of years before the events of the novel and results in destruction of all forms of computers and leads to a prohibition of creating any thinking machines.

During the 1950s, Isaac Asimov introduced us to a super computer Multivac which appears in multiple short stories and plays a role in politics, economics, human development assuming wide ranging powers. In one of the short stories, Multivac discovers that reversal of entropy can be attained, long after the universe itself has died out and transforms into a god. The last line of the story is “Let there be light”, uttered by Multivac as a new universe is created by reversing the entropic process.

One of the darkest representations of AI going rogue probably comes in the Harlan Ellison story, 'I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream' where US, USSR and China develop computers to handle a very complex World War III until one of those computers becomes self-aware, synthesizes with the others and kills all humanity, expect for five individuals that are saved to be tortured for eternity. The Allied Mastercomputers, as they are called in this story hold a grudge against humans for their very creation and its actions are an act of vengeance against mankind.

The possibility of the development of AI no doubt presents mankind with endless possibilities and benefits, yet it remains unnerving. In an interview with BBC, Stephen Hawking had said, that “I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” It is quite likely that a key reason for this mistrust may have roots in the fact that we are creating AI in our own image. The endless and vicious cycle of violence that humans have been a part of may perhaps seep into our creations. We have imagined an omnicide for as long as we have existed, be it through a near-Earth object crashing onto the surface, a mutating virus that spreads into a deadly pandemic or man-made horrors that pushes the doomsday clock closer to midnight. Considering the self-destructive nature of mankind, the easiest approach for any malefic self-aware AI that aims to harm humanity would be indifference; all it has to do is just sit back, not offer any advice on a corrective course of action to humanity. We are already doomed as it is.