Hidden Stories of AI, episode 1: the novelists who imagined it first
Mary Shelley, Karel Čapek, Isaac Asimov and George Orwell imagined made minds, robots, robot laws and watching machines long before modern AI.
What the video says
Long before ChatGPT, four writers imagined it. Their words still shape how we talk about AI. In 1816, during a stormy summer near Lake Geneva, eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley began Frankenstein. Its scientist builds a living mind, then abandons it.
In 1920, the Czech writer Karel Čapek wrote the play R.U.R., about artificial workers who rebel.
It gave us the word robot, from robota, Czech for forced labour. In 1942, Isaac Asimov gave robots three laws: do not harm a human, obey orders, and protect yourself. Then he wrote story after story about the rules going wrong. In 1949, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four put a telescreen in every home that watched you back.
Big Brother is watching you. A made mind, a rebel worker, rules that fail, a machine that watches. We are still living inside their questions. Next: the scientists.
Sources
- Britannica: Mary Shelley
- Britannica: R.U.R.
- Britannica: Who coined the term robot?
- Britannica: Isaac Asimov
- Britannica: Robotics
- Britannica: George Orwell
Noir illustrations drawn in code by AI Broadsheet; no book covers, artworks, photos or film images reproduced. Music: “Journey To The Interweb” by Aemyn (CC0, Freesound); sounds: Freesound (CC0). Report a mistake