Rise of the Machines: Books About Tech Taking Over
The rise of technology and the idea of machines taking over the world have long been a rich mine of storytelling gold for authors, especially now with the rise of AI. What aspects of life and work are we willing to delegate to machines, and at one point does it become too much?
At the heart of this is the fear of a creation overpowering its creator; what happens when something that is human-made no longer responds to human commands?
Mary Shelley tapped into this fear with FRANKENSTEIN, which could be considered a very early science fiction novel; the monster rebels against Victor, and at the same time exposes the darker side of humanity.
There are the classics like Isaac Asimov’s I, ROBOT, William Gibson’s NEUROMANCER, and Philip K. Dick’s DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP, which was the inspiration for BLADE RUNNER. In the movies, we’ve seen this in Skynet running horribly amok in TERMINATOR, and in the sinister little girl robot in M3GAN.
Hit Ctrl-Alt-READ on some of these other books about sentient tech, both good and evil.
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Erin Roll is a freelance writer, editor, and proofreader. Her favorite genres to read are mystery, science fiction, and fantasy, and her TBR pile is likely to be visible on Google Maps. Before becoming an editor, Erin worked as a journalist and photographer, and she has won far too many awards from the New Jersey Press Association. Erin lives at the top floor of a haunted house in Montclair, NJ. She enjoys reading (of course), writing, hiking, kayaking, music, and video games.