Eat Your AI Slop or China Wins

In “Darwin Among the Machines,” a letter to an editor published in 1863, the English novelist Samuel Butler observed with dread how the technology of his time was degrading humanity. “Day by day,” he wrote, “the machines are gaining ground upon us; day by day we are becoming more subservient to them.” For the ironical Butler, the solution was simple: kill the machines. “War to the death should be instantly proclaimed against them. Every machine of every sort should be destroyed by the well-wisher of his species.”