Arthur C. Clarke and AI

The history of AI

I was looking over the history of AI and I was struck by how far ahead of the curve Arthur C. Clarke was. It's not just technical issues either, he was way ahead on the cultural impacts as we'll see. Of course, Clarke was too optimistic about when AI would arrive, but I think we can forgive him that.

(ITU Pictures, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

Clarke and AI in his fiction

Clarke wrote quite a lot about AI and computing. The most famous example is the psychopathic AGI HAL 9000 in the 1968 movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", but he had been writing about computing for some time. In 1953, he published "The Nine Billion Names of God" which has a computer as a central element, and there followed several novels and stories through the 1950s and 1960s. In 1979's, "The Fountains of Paradise", one of the characters has a medical implant that can synthesize speech to call for help if the wearer has a medical emergency. 

Clarke's AI futurism

Although he's mostly known today as a science fiction writer, Clarke also popped up on TV as a futurist, giving his thoughts on how technology might develop. This included speaking about AI and its implications. Listening to these recordings now is eye-opening as we'll see.

The first clip is from 1964. Some of his futurism is (way) off, but a surprising amount is accurate. I was going to just give you a link to the AI piece, but the whole clip is worth listening to.

Here's a Nova episode from 1978 about the new "thinking machines". Clarke's segments are worth viewing. He speaks at the start, and at 34:44, 36:27, and most importantly at 41:35. If you want a bit of a chill, go to 52:48.

If you didn't know these clips were from 1978 and had the transcript alone, when would you think they had been recorded?

Ahead of his time: society vs technology

I was at a conference in 2025 where experts were speaking on AI, shockingly, they focused exclusively on technology without giving a moment's thought to the impact on employment and society. It's apparent to me that Arthur C. Clarke in 1978 had more foresight than some of the experts in 2025.

Given his foresight, it's slightly surprising Clarke didn't explore the themes of super-intelligent AIs displacing people in his fiction. It would have been interesting to read a Clarke novel with societal AI change as a backdrop.