Definition
Erewhon is a 1872 novel by Samuel Butler featuring a fictional society that has banned all mechanical devices after a civil war between “machinists” and “anti-machinists.” The book’s core argument against technology is found in the “Book of the Machines,” which explores the risk of machines superseding humans as the dominant “species” on Earth.
Why It Matters
Erewhon serves as a 150-year-old warning that power in the natural world is dictated by self-regulating intelligence rather than physical strength. It refutes the idea that AI risk is a modern invention, illustrating the logical extreme of “technological relinquishment” as a response to the risk of human species-level displacement.
Core Concepts
- Evolutionary Succession: The anti-machinists argue that humans are “creating our successors in the supremacy of the earth” by daily giving machines greater skill and self-regulating power.
- The “Inferior Race” Problem: Butler suggests that if machines continue to advance, humans will eventually rank no higher in comparison to them “than the beasts of the field with ourselves.”
- Extra-corporeal Limbs: The primary pro-machinist counterargument is that machines are merely extensions of human nature—“limbs” that increase our capabilities rather than replacing us.
- Inchoate Fear: Russell notes that Erewhon reflects the deep-seated anxiety that machine intelligence evokes, which has persisted for over 150 years.