Am I already in the shadow of the Coming Race
May 1879 (William Blackwood and Sons). Novelist George Eliot in Shadows of the Coming Race, a chapter in which her narrator imagines machines that repair and reproduce themselves and supersede humans, published May 1879.
Impressions of Theophrastus Such (Shadows of the Coming Race)
More from George Eliot · AI and philosophy · AI and safety · Before ChatGPT
Who else?
What it refers to: The Coming Race: machines imagined as steely organisms that transcend and finally supersede humans, prompted by devices like the Bank of England's coin-testing machine.
Other voices
- “The ultimate development of mechanical consciousness” Samuel Butler,
- “The race to come after man” Philip K. Dick,
- “We should have to expect the machines to take control” Alan Turing, Researcher,
- “Should be subordinates to humans, they should not have legal personhood or rights” Mustafa Suleyman, Builder,
- “The last invention that man need ever make” I. J. Good,
- “Robots are not evil” Kerstin Dautenhahn,










