Robot Evolution and the Fate of Humanity: Pop Culture and Futurology in the Early 20th Century

Abstract

By the turn of the twentieth century, the pace of technological development had created a more pressing need for considering where such progress might ultimately lead us. During this period, the exploration of potential futures of humanity in a world shared with self-reproducing, evolving machines was attracting a wider audience. Where Butler, Marshall and Eliot had led in considering these ideas in the late nineteenth century, others soon followed. In this chapter we discuss novels, sci-fi and other literature that explored self-reproducing machines in the early twentieth century, and we also cover speculative scientific work from this period.