The story of artificial intelligence didn't begin with ChatGPT in 2022 or even with computers in the 1950s. Humanity has been dreaming about creating thinking machines for thousands of years, from golden servants forged by the Greek god Hephaestus to the Golem of Jewish legend. These ancient myths didn't just predict AI; they fundamentally shaped how we talk about it, what we expect from it, and the technology people have gone on to build.

In their new book "Myth-Made Machines: The Stories Behind Artificial Intelligence," authors Dave Bradley and Kelly Vero trace humanity's fascination with artificial life through mythology, literature, movies, and television. Their central argument challenges how we think about AI's origins: the cultural idea of artificial intelligence is far older than modern computers, and understanding this history is crucial to understanding the present moment.

When Did Humans First Imagine Artificial Intelligence?

The concept of creating autonomous servants from inanimate material is ancient. Greek mythology featured Hephaestus crafting golden workers to assist in his workshop, while Jewish folklore gave us the Golem, an artificial being brought to life to carry out its creator's commands. These stories reveal something fundamental about human nature: we've always wanted to create thinking machines in our own image.

For something closer to what we'd recognize as a computer, Jonathan Swift's 1726 novel "Gulliver's Travels" offers a fascinating early example. The Engine of Lagado randomly rearranges words in hopes of generating useful knowledge. Read today, it looks uncannily like a satirical ancestor of generative AI, the technology powering ChatGPT and similar models. The term "artificial intelligence" in the modern sense wasn't coined until the 1950s by computer scientist John McCarthy, but once it entered the cultural lexicon, it began appearing regularly in television and film, particularly in shows like "The Twilight Zone" and "Star Trek".

How Have Science Fiction and Myths Influenced Real AI Development?

The influence isn't merely coincidental. Today's engineers and entrepreneurs grew up reading Isaac Asimov, watching Star Wars and Star Trek, and absorbing decades of science fiction narratives about artificial life. Research supports this connection: a 2022 study found that 93% of UK astronomers enjoyed science fiction, and 69% said it had influenced their career decisions.

Sometimes the connection is remarkably direct. Pete Bonasso at TRACLabs has explicitly credited HAL 9000 from "2001: A Space Odyssey" as an inspiration for his work on NASA space AI systems. Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, invented purely for fiction, have become a reference point for real-world thinking about AI safety. Google DeepMind's 2024 "Robot Constitution" sets out safety rules for machines in a way that directly echoes this fictional tradition.

"Today's engineers and entrepreneurs grew up on Star Wars, Star Trek, Isaac Asimov and William Gibson, and there's good evidence that science fiction influences the people who go on to build the future," explained Dave Bradley.

Dave Bradley, co-author of "Myth-Made Machines: The Stories Behind Artificial Intelligence"

Ways Myths and Stories Shape Our AI Expectations

• Safety Frameworks: Fictional concepts like Asimov's Three Laws have directly influenced how real AI researchers think about safety constraints and ethical guidelines for artificial systems.
• Design Philosophy: The archetypal "helpful servant" from ancient myths continues to influence how AI assistants like ChatGPT are designed to be helpful, harmless, and honest.
• Cultural Narratives: Our tendency to joke about Skynet when a new AI model is released shows how deeply science fiction has embedded itself in how we discuss and understand AI development.
• Fear and Wonder Balance: Ancient myths established a pattern of viewing artificial life with both hope and suspicion, a duality that persists in modern AI discourse.

The authors note that this cultural inheritance creates a particular dynamic in how society responds to AI. As Kelly Vero observed, humanity's relationship with artificial intelligence swings between two extremes: "If we don't like it, we'll kill it. If we love it, we'll marry it." This binary thinking, rooted in ancient storytelling traditions, continues to shape policy discussions, investment decisions, and public perception of AI today.

When ChatGPT formally launched in 2022, one of the first jokes circulating on social media was about Skynet coming online. This wasn't random; it reflected how deeply science fiction narratives have woven themselves into our collective understanding of AI. The way we understand and talk about this new technology is fundamentally shaped by stories we've been telling ourselves for years, centuries, and even millennia.

"Myth-Made Machines is the essence of where every element of AI or robo-futurism comes from: Myth. With myth, we, as humans, have to navigate the real and the prescient from the propaganda and the fanciful," noted Kelly Vero.

Kelly Vero, co-author of "Myth-Made Machines: The Stories Behind Artificial Intelligence"

What Does This Mean for AI's Future?

Understanding that our AI present is shaped by ancient myths and science fiction narratives isn't merely academic. It suggests that the way forward requires more than just technical innovation. The interesting question isn't simply whether AI technology is good or bad, but rather who prospers from it, who controls it, and how widely any benefits and risks are shared. This framing echoes William Gibson's famous observation that "the future is already here; it's just not evenly distributed." The same principle applies to AI: the technology exists, but access to its benefits and exposure to its risks remain unevenly distributed across society.

As new generations of AI models continue to arrive at an accelerating pace, the myths and stories that shaped our expectations remain relevant. They remind us that artificial intelligence isn't a purely technical problem to be solved, but a deeply human one, rooted in our oldest dreams and fears about creating life in our own image.