Fear of AI is an old, old story. Rebelling robots and evil mystery boxes have worried us for millennia

The fears of rogue artificial intelligence may seem like a new concern, with recent developments such as ChatGPT and self-driving cars — but tales of sentient and potentially malevolent technology date back not just decades, but millennia. 

According to historians, these themes were around long before Arnold Schwarzenegger played the role of a killer robot and travelled back in time to menace Sarah Connor in 1984's The Terminator.

"People had been thinking about these kinds of devices and inventions and innovations … before the technology existed," Adrienne Mayor, a historian of ancient science and a classical folklorist at Stanford University, told Tapestry host Mary Hynes.

Stories such as Pandora in ancient Greece, the murderous rampage of a golem in Prague, and Frankenstein's monster are just some of the many dots throughout history that connect our fear of inanimate creations coming to life. 

Mayor, whose 2018 book Gods and Robots explores the subject, says some of these legends come with warnings.

One of the oldest tales dates back to ancient Greece and the story of Pandora. Mayor says in the original story, told by Greek poet Hesiod, Zeus wanted to punish humankind for accepting the gift of fire. 

So Zeus commissioned Hephaestus — the god of fire, blacksmiths, craftsmen and volcanoes — to create an artificial woman named Pandora that Zeus described as evil disguised as beauty. 

"Zeus sent this lifelike fembot to Earth carrying this jar filled with misery for mortals," said Mayor. "Pandora's mission was to insinuate herself into human society and then open that jar and release all the misery."

In Hesiod's story, Pandora did just that. Prometheus's brother, Epimetheus, fell for the beauty of Pandora, despite his brother's warning. In Greek, Prometheus means looking ahead, while Epimetheus means hindsight.

"We've got foresight versus hindsight right there in one of the oldest myths about artificial life," said Mayor.

"Prometheans today are concerned about our future with AI and robotics, in contrast to … the overly optimistic Epimetheans, who are easily dazzled by the short-term gains."

Mayor says Pandora isn't the only tale about artificial intelligence in Greek mythology. There's also the story of Talos, the first depiction of a robot-like being in Western literature. Talos was designed by Hephaestus to protect the island of Crete. 

"He could pick up and hurl boulders to sink the enemy ships. And then if anyone did come ashore, he could heat his bronze body to red hot and then grab them up and hug them to himself and roast them alive," said Mayor. 

But in the story of Jason and the Argonauts, they were able to remove the bolt on Talos's ankle to defeat him.