There is so much “news” about Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) – but precious little that is new.

We’ve had authors for a century-plus describing almost exactly the doomsday scenarios towards which we are now currently, stupidly hurtling ourselves.

Samuel Butler wrote the tome Erewhon way back in 1872.  His chapter “Book of the Machines” argues:

“(M)achines could evolve through natural selection, eventually surpassing human intelligence. This idea – wild at the time – is now foundational in AI discourse. Butler anticipated self-improving systems and machine autonomy, decades before the first computers. His warning is simple: intelligence doesn’t need flesh to be dangerous….”

But we are ignoring a century-plus’ worth of these warnings.  Because we are in late stage American Empire.  Where history doesn’t exist – and stupidity reigns.

One feature of late stage empire is the hyper-partisan-ization of everything.  Call it Us-Versus-Them-ism: (more…)