In preparing a lecture for an AI symposium this coming January, I had the opportunity to explore the fears and societal upheavals triggered by new technologies and methods of doing things.

For instance, one of my new favorite historical curiosities is that Plato, the great philosopher, voiced concerns about the impact of books on society. In his dialogue: Phaedrus (around 370 B.C.), he worried that writing would make people forgetful and, consequently, more ignorant, as the written word was not integrated into the individual’s mind.

This notion is, of course, quite absurd. The ability to transfer information beyond our lifetimes without worrying about its dilution has arguably made us far more successful as a species. The fact that I don’t need to listen to George Orwell in person to access 1984 or to Cervantes for Don Quijote makes this all the more evident. Ironically, it is not oral tradition but rather the written word that has ensured Plato’s own ideas have endured and spread.

And this is far from the only time we’ve gotten caught up in absurd machinations about new technologies. We are, after all, creatures who thrive on stories—stories that are sometimes plain stupid.

Take the introduction of the telegraph, for example. There was widespread societal concern similar to what we’ve seen with the internet. Some even doubted humanity’s ability to “process information at such a fast pace,” a sentiment not unlike the skepticism we experienced at the dawn of the internet era some 30 years ago.

The train, too, inspired its fair share of paranoia and delusions. It was once seriously believed that train travel might cause ‘madness,’ as the human body was supposedly ‘not designed for such speeds.” The fact that this idea originated from an alarmist, conspiratorial publication did little to diminish the fears it provoked.

Electricity didn’t fare much better. Nightmarish scenarios of electrical wires wreaking havoc on people’s lives seemed like an all-too-real possibility at the time.

And just like the examples mentioned earlier, I’m certain there are plenty of other instances where we believed something was going to fundamentally damage society and destroy us—only to look back decades later and laugh at the absurdity of the idea.

AI is merely the latest addition to a long and unjustified tradition of fear-mongering stories, filling the collective imagination with patently absurd notions of terminators and Skynet. 

The important takeaway for us is that we’ve been here before, and we’ll be alright this time too. One key solution in this new war will be once more, knowledge.