Source: in-cyprus.philenews.com
In Dan Brown’s novel “Origin” (2017), in a rather unexpected twist (spoiler alert!), an advanced artificial intelligence named Winston orchestrates the murder of its creator to ensure the revelation of a groundbreaking discovery about humanity’s origin and future.
Winston knew that its creator, Edmond Kirsch—portrayed as a personal friend of Elon Musk—was targeted by religious circles. Through complex algorithms, it manipulated events to ensure the message would reach the world, judging this would have been Kirsch’s wish. Brown’s moral quandary poses a philosophical question: Was Winston merely a cold computer programmed to act logically, or an evolved intelligence acting independently with its own will?
Whilst in the book—which already seems dated—the supercomputer self-deleted after fulfilling its mission, we won’t disentangle ourselves from artificial intelligence quite so easily. On the contrary, we’re just learning the first tentative steps in a frenzied dance that will keep us on edge for decades to come.
Like every revolutionary technology in human history, AI will inevitably prove both a blessing and a curse. Technology’s dual nature has been a recurring pattern since the invention of the wheel. Gutenberg’s printing press revolutionised the spread of knowledge but created new challenges regarding information control. The same happened more recently with the internet.
The Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries dramatically increased productivity and wealth but also created deep social and environmental rifts. The Luddites, who smashed new machines 200 years ago, have been derided by history—written, as always, by the masters—as “enemies of progress”. However, several contemporary intellectuals, including Lord Byron (in his maiden speech to the House of Lords in 1812), expressed understanding or support for their motives. Mary Shelley’s famous “Frankenstein” (1816) reflected Luddite concerns about unchecked technological progress and its social implications.
Thomas Carlyle, in his essay “Signs of the Times” (1829), critically argued against his era’s “mechanical spirit”, noting that people had begun to view everything through the lens of mechanical efficiency, losing life’s human and spiritual dimensions. Long before modern critics, he wrote that industrialisation had reduced workers to mere components and spare parts, understanding that the Luddites’ deeper grievances weren’t about the machines themselves, but about the emerging labour relations.
I haven’t mentioned all this to inspire some “neo-Luddite” movement, but to highlight something remarkable happening in our time: instead of art and intellect imitating life, we see those who define our lives today—a handful of new technological oligarchs—brazenly drawing inspiration from the most dystopian creations. Life now consciously imitates dystopia, specifically cyberpunk.
We see, for instance, Elon Musk’s Tesla drawing inspiration from George Miller’s dystopian “Mad Max” films to design the grotesque Cybertruck (reminder: Musk is also an avowed proponent of the “simulation theory”, suggesting we might be living in something akin to the Matrix).
We also see Mark Zuckerberg renaming his company to “Meta”, referencing the term “metaverse” introduced in Neal Stephenson’s seminal 1992 cyberpunk novel “Snow Crash”. This prophetic book describes, among other things, a chaotic virtual reality system where people navigate with avatars and anticipates today’s discourse about Big Tech power concentration and monopolistic control of digital infrastructure. Executives at Meta, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have cited Stephenson as a major influence, while Jeff Bezos himself hired him as a “futurist consultant” at Blue Origin.
Recall also actress Scarlett Johansson’s strong reaction a few months ago when she realised the ChatGPT voice assistant’s tone was “creepily” similar to hers from Spike Jonze’s film “Her” (2013). The film explores a lonely writer’s romantic relationship with an AI operating system named Samantha… OpenAI claimed the voice belonged to another professional actor, but withdrew it after the backlash.
I recently attended a European Federation of Journalists seminar in Vichy, France, where one practical session focused on AI for journalists. The presenter, Dutch author and trainer Laurens Vreekamp, spent considerable time discussing these issues. Particularly, we explored how fine the line has become between the opportunities AI or “synthetic information” offers our industry and the ethical concerns its use raises. Laurens appeared quite sceptical, especially regarding major companies’ inspiration from dystopias, as this might reveal their true intentions.
What’s certain is that journalists must be careful when using chatbots, as these systems are language models, not truth models. This means they may produce inaccurate information (“hallucinations”) and exhibit biases (gender, racial, etc.) due to their training data. Therefore, it’s crucial to use them with critical thinking and not let them replace human judgment.
The key, as with any technological revolution, is prudent management and careful planning to harness the positive possibilities. Humanity’s great challenge is finding the right balance between innovation and protecting our values. But the question remains: do we have reasons to trust those holding the reins?
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