On June 13th, 1863, The Press newspaper of Christchurch, New Zealand published an ominous letter that warned that machines would eventually become more intelligent and more powerful than humans. The letter was entitled “Darwin Among the Machines”, and it was written by an English sheep farmer living in New Zealand named Samuel Butler. He argued that humans are literally “creating our own successors”, and he was entirely convinced that at some point in the future “we shall find ourselves the inferior race”. Below is the most important paragraph from Butler’s letter…
The views of machinery which we are thus feebly indicating will suggest the solution of one of the greatest and most mysterious questions of the day. We refer to the question: What sort of creature man’s next successor in the supremacy of the earth is likely to be….
