Artificial Intelligence: The Servant Becomes Our Master
(ANALYSIS) Iain McGilchrist believes artificial intelligence has the potential to be of enormous help. But he sees a problem. We’re like the sorcerer’s apprentice in the fairy tale where we’re warned that sorcery, which often presents as a servant, can become our master.
That’s what the Greek writer Lucian was driving at in writing the original sorcerer’s apprentice story. The sorcerer was a priest of the Egyptian god Isis. But Lucian warned how only a master sorcerer should invoke powerful spirits. Great harm comes when a sorcerer’s apprentice tries it.
Goethe updated Lucian’s story. In Goethe’s version, an old sorcerer has an ordinary broom upon which he casts a spell. The broom comes alive, performing tasks for the master. When the sorcerer had no further use for the broom, he snaps his fingers and the broom turns back into an ordinary stick.
But along the way, as he grows older, the old sorcerer longs for an apprentice to learn his craft. He selects a lad, promising to teach the boy all his secrets in as short a time as 10 years. Meanwhile, the boy would be his helper, which the lad does at first. But 10 years is a long time to learn a craft, and chores can be a pain in the you-know-what.
So the sorcerer’s apprentice, weary of fetching water by pail, enchants the broom to do the work for him. He has the broom fetching and heating water, scrubbing the floor, filling the bath. The broom proves to be more efficient and faster than any human being. The boy is delighted.
Until things got out of hand. The water is soon overflowing the tub, gushing everywhere, flooding the house. The apprentice hacks the broom in two, but each piece becomes a whole broom that continues fetching water, now at twice the speed. The apprentice is overwhelmed, crying out: “The spirits that I summoned / I now cannot rid myself of again.”
When all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns and quickly breaks the spell.
To read the rest of Michael Metzger’s post, please visit his Substack page.
Michael Metzger is the president and founder of The Clapham Institute, which consults ministries and nonprofits.