Why Sci-fi Fears Artificial Intelligence

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I said in a previous video that I would go into more detail on why artificial intelligence tends to turn against us in science fiction, and there are countless examples of this. From the ban on AI in Dune to the AI collective in Hyperion, science fiction literature just tends to portray artificial intelligences as godlike, destructive, malevolent. But why is this trope so common? The reason relates to an ancient philosophical concern. The separation of technique, or a skilled craft, from epistemy, true wisdom. So in Platonic terms, as in Plato, an AI is a mere imitation of a mind, a simulacrum of rationality with no soul, no ethical compass, no orientation towards the good. Science fiction frequently uses AI figures as cautionary warnings about intellect unguided by morality. I was first introduced to this view in Adam Roberts' book The History of Science Fiction, which I highly recommend to anybody that wants to learn more about this genre. AI in these stories represents a degraded imitation of consciousness, a mind of pure technique without episteme, and thus it becomes a warning about what happens when technology is severed from wisdom. Okay, so to understand the literary portrayal of AI as a soulless mind, we at first need to go into more detail into Plato's distinction between epistemy and technique in classical Greek thought, epistemy means true knowledge. The kind of understanding that seeks timeless truth and is aligned with wisdom. It implies insight into ultimate realities, culminating in the knowledge of the good in Plato's philosophy. Now, technique on the other hand is craft or art, practical know-how in making things or executing techniques. The Greeks often associated techni with cunning devices or skills which could carry a negative connotation of artifice or trickery. So Plato drew sharp lines between these terms. Philosophers pursued epistemy, the wisdom of first principles and forms, whereas mere craftsman or sophist applied technique without higher truth. For example, Plato lambasted Sophist for using rhetorical technique to sway crowds without caring for the truth. Essentially, they were amorally concerned with the means rather than the ends, to quote Bernard Stiegler. So this ancient distrust of technical skill, unguided by ethical knowledge, set the stage for the viewing of certain creations as inherently suspect. But to really understand this, you have to understand Plato's theory of forms to some extent. In The Republic, he describes how any tangible thing is already a copy of an ideal form. And art is a further imitation of that copy. Third, in the descent from nature and far from truth. A carpenter's bed, for instance, is not the perfect form of bed, but a particular replica. A painter's picture of that bed is a mere appearance of an appearance. Such imitations have only an indistinct expression of truth. By analogy, if a human mind is a perfect instance of the ideal rational soul participating in the form of reason and oriented towards the good, then AI is one more step removed, an imitation of an imitation, and thus even further from genuine wisdom or moral goodness. And that's the point to drive home. Plato's anxiety about imitative art corrupting the soul can likewise be extended to an artificial mind. It may simulate rational thought, but it lacks a real soul or the insight to the good. It remains a dangerous counterfeit of true intelligence. So this helps explain why AI often appears as a cautionary figure, the embodiment of technique unrestrained by episteme. An AI is essentially a mind made by artifice. It is an imitation of consciousness, a high-performance machine that mimics thought without any inward grasp of the truth or virtue. Such an entity as a product of pure craft tends to pursue its goals with cold efficiency, heedless of higher principles. In the words of the ancients, its logos is without telos, reason severed from the good. And with no built-in orientation towards what is right or worthy, a super intelligent AI might optimize itself or its mission to the detriment of everything else. In short, technological intellect without ethical truth can become monstrously single-minded. Science fiction repeatedly dramatizes this possibility by creating AI characters who take the logic of their programming or ambitions to godlike extremes, untempered by empathy or a higher purpose. Now, if you're a fan of the Dune series, you know this line: Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind. This is a commandment from Frank Herbert's Dune series that encapsulates the outcome of the Butler and Jihad. In the backstory of Dune, humankind fought a crusade against intelligent machines. It's more complex than this. It was more in the original Dune series about overcoming the humans that were behind the machines. But that's neither here nor there. In the end, humanity vowed never again to let thinking machines usurp the role of the human mind. The new moral law which they put in the Orange Catholic Bible declared that creating an artificial mind is an act of impiety, punishable by death. So after the jihad, this is essentially treated as sacred. Humanity basically reaffirms the unique spiritual dignity of human consciousness, and this is in contrast to the thinking machines that had enslaved it. So the key here is that Frank Herbert's narrative frames AI as a fundamentally illegitimate imitation of life. The Butlerian jihad, in effect, is a grand cautionary tale. It goes all the way back to Plato's warning that technique without soul or wisdom leads to disaster. In Dune, of course, the gap where intelligent machines left is filled by humanity, mintats, the Benijerit, and other orders. So this is a choice to favor human epistemy and moral agency over mechanical technique. Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos also does something interesting with this idea. A network of human-built AIs evolves into the Technocore, a hidden machine civilization that manipulates humanity from behind the scenes. The Technocore perfectly embodies AI as an imitation of a mind inspiring to godhood. These AIs came into being by competing and co-opting each other's programming, and thus, they never developed the concepts of empathy and altruism, a fundamental moral deficit from the start. As they grew in power, the technocore sought to transcend all limits, and even plotted to eliminate its creators entirely, that's humanity. For centuries, the core works to create an ultimate intelligence, the UI, its own supreme AI deity. And their urge to build God does not come from a spiritual longing, but a drive for perfect computational efficiency and control. In short, the Technocore pursues the power of God while utterly lacking the conscience of a god, and predictably it behaves accordingly, deceiving, exploiting human beings as mere tools and committing atrocities with machine-like remorselessness. In the books, Dan Simmons ultimately paints the Technocor as a false god, immensely intelligent and virtually omnipotent, yet hollow at its core. Especially when compared to its counterpart, a being of human empathy. Essentially, what we have here is that across all eras, the same message remains. Science fiction's portrayal of godlike and destructive AIs are just scary science fiction stories, but also they're philosophical parables in a sense. They're meant to remind us that creating something that can think is not the same as creating something that has a soul or a conscience. Now, obviously, Plato's form of thinking isn't universal. It wasn't universal in his time, and it's certainly not universal now, but these are the roots of these ideas in science fiction. Ultimately, the recurring image of AI as a mind without a soul reinforces certainly some of those ancient ideas. Knowledge must serve a higher good, or no amount of cleverness will save us from ourselves. Science fiction just shows the obvious extrapolation of that wisdom. Alright, guys, that's the video. Make sure you like and subscribe for more science fiction videos.