The Red-eyed AI Myth

AI and Our Fear of the "Created" Turning Against Its Creator

From Frankenstein to Blade Runner, the cautionary tales of an evil Artificial Intelligence, designed in our image, have shaped the foundation of horror stories and undoubtedly influenced our perspectives on Generative AI.

How much of this fear of Artificial Intelligence is logical, and how much is cultural, rooted in a shared societal apprehension of the unknown?

Exploring this topic, I discovered that throughout history, myths and legends have warned about humans creating something powerful that ultimately turns against them.

Some examples include:

• Greek Mythology: Pandora, the first woman created by the gods, opened a forbidden box and unleashed chaos upon the world—a theme echoed in AI stories where "opening the box" leads to disaster.
• Frankenstein: Often considered the first sci-fi novel, it tells the story of a scientist creating life that ultimately turns against him.
• The Industrial Revolution: Led to significant societal fears about machines replacing human labour—a theme that resurfaces in AI fears today.
• The 1927 movie Metropolis: Depicted a humanoid robot replacing workers, reinforcing the fear that machines will surpass and dominate humans.
• The Uncanny Valley Hypothesis concept suggests that as artificial entities become more human-like, they elicit feelings of unease and discomfort. en.wikipedia.org

These deep-seated and long-standing fears suggest that the fear of AI is, at least in part, an extension of these shared cultural narratives.

Ultimately, for me, AI itself isn’t inherently good or evil but perhaps we have some cultural And anthropological barriers to a successful AI future.

Interested in your thoughts?