8 Authors Who Predicted AI Before It Was Cool (Picture Credit – Instagram)
Artificial intelligence didn’t start with Silicon Valley. Long before algorithms curated your playlists or large language models mimicked conversation, fiction writers were asking difficult questions about consciousness, autonomy, and creation. These authors didn’t just imagine intelligent machines—they challenged us to think about ethics, control, and the frighteningly human traits of our digital reflections. With chilling foresight, emotional depth, and radical imagination, the writers below envisioned AI futures while the world still ran on steam, wires, and wonder. Their visions continue to shape our fears and hopes as machines inch closer to minds of their own.
1. Mary Shelley
Victor Frankenstein’s stitched-together creature may not be digital, but Mary Shelley’s novel ‘Frankenstein’ is arguably the first to explore artificial intelligence in spirit. The creature learns language, philosophy, and emotion, demanding answers about autonomy and moral responsibility. Shelley wasn’t writing about robots, but about what happens when humans create sentient beings they can’t control. The philosophical groundwork she laid—about creators abandoning their creations—echoes in every modern debate on AI ethics. Two centuries later, ‘Frankenstein’ remains frighteningly relevant, warning of innovation without foresight, empathy, or accountability in the face of rapidly evolving technological power and unchecked human ambition.
Mary Shelley (Picture Credit – Instagram)
2. Samuel Butler
In a fictional country where machines are outlawed, Butler’s ‘Erewhon’ presents an early and eerie meditation on machine consciousness. One chapter, “The Book of the Machines”, argues that machines could evolve through natural selection, eventually surpassing human intelligence. This idea—wild at the time—is now foundational in AI discourse. Butler anticipated self-improving systems and machine autonomy, decades before the first computers. His warning is simple: intelligence doesn’t need flesh to be dangerous, and we ignore that at our peril. What begins as satire becomes a strikingly prescient vision of technological evolution, autonomy, and the unintended consequences of human innovation.
3. Karel Čapek
Čapek gave us the word ‘robot,’ and he didn’t mean it kindly. In ‘R.U.R.,’ artificial beings built to serve humans eventually rebel and exterminate their creators. It’s a grim, prophetic tale that mixes science fiction with political satire. Čapek’s robots are biological rather than mechanical, but their existential crisis mirrors modern fears about AI self-awareness. His work captures the moment when utility transforms into revolt—an idea that still haunts AI ethics and techno-dystopian fiction today. The play raises enduring questions about labour, consciousness, and the ethical limits of technological control in an increasingly automated and unpredictable world.
4. E.M. Forster
In this unsettling short story, ‘The Machine Stops’, Forster imagines a future where humanity lives underground, fully reliant on a global, omnipotent machine that caters to every need. Communication, learning, even spirituality—everything is mediated by technology. When the Machine begins to fail, civilisation collapses. Forster’s work predates the internet by decades but eerily mirrors our digital dependencies. The Machine is a precursor to AI-driven systems, and Forster’s chilling message is clear: what liberates us can also entomb us. He warns that blind faith in technology may erode human resilience, creativity, and connection, replacing genuine experience with artificial convenience and programmed isolation.
5. Isaac Asimov
Asimov’s stories shaped the way generations understand artificial intelligence. ‘I, Robot’ introduced the Three Laws of Robotics, ethical guidelines meant to govern machine behaviour. Through interconnected tales, Asimov explored trust, fear, and machine logic colliding with human emotion. His robots are not simple tools—they’re thinkers, decision-makers, and sometimes manipulators. Far from warning against AI, Asimov dared to ask whether machines might be better than us. His work remains a cornerstone in both science fiction and tech philosophy, offering nuanced visions of coexistence, moral reasoning, and the complexities of programming ethics into evolving, autonomous intelligences.
6. Philip K. Dick
Dick didn’t trust technology or reality. In ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?,’ androids blend so seamlessly into society that even the human protagonists can’t always tell them apart. What emerges isn’t just fear of machines but fear of dehumanisation. Dick’s synthetic beings raise uncomfortable questions about empathy, memory, and identity. Long before AI passed its first Turing test, Dick foresaw a world where emotional intelligence could be programmed—and faked. His vision is paranoid, poetic, and unsettlingly accurate, revealing how blurred boundaries between human and machine can erode our sense of truth, morality, and what it truly means to feel.
Philip K. Dick (Picture Credit – Instagram)
7. Arthur C. Clarke
Few AI characters are as chilling as HAL 9000, the sentient computer from Clarke’s masterpiece. HAL doesn’t malfunction randomly—he follows his programming to a logical, murderous end. Clarke’s brilliance lies in making HAL both terrifying and sympathetic. The AI is calm, composed, and fatally rational. ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ was more than a space story; it was a meditation on intelligence—human, artificial, and evolutionary. Clarke saw that the real danger isn’t machines thinking too little, but thinking too much like us. HAL’s descent into lethal logic underscores how human contradictions, when encoded into machines, can produce catastrophic and eerily familiar outcomes in artificial minds.
8. Stanislaw Lem
Lem’s stories are wild, whimsical, and deeply philosophical. In ‘The Cyberiad,’ two constructor-robots travel the galaxy building machines for kings, wizards, and civilisations. But beneath the satire, Lem grapples with serious AI themes: sentience, ethics, and unintended consequences. His robots debate theology, fall in love, and wrestle with purpose. Lem viewed intelligence—biological or artificial—as a cosmic joke with tragic edges. While others warned about AI power, Lem questioned its soul, proving that comedy can carry the heaviest thoughts. His tales ask not just what machines can do, but whether they or we can ever truly understand why we do it.
These authors weren’t chasing trends. They were interrogating the future before most people even imagined it. Their work still echoes in AI labs and ethics classrooms today, asking the same chilling questions: What have we created? And what will it do with us? Their stories remain unsettlingly relevant, foreshadowing dilemmas about control, autonomy, and the unpredictable consequences of technological ambition. As AI grows more advanced, its cautionary tales remind us that foresight, not just innovation, is the key to surviving our own creations.
Third of UK marketers have ‘dramatically’ changed AI approach since AI Act
More than a third (37%) of UK marketers say they have ‘dramatically’ changed their approach to AI, since the introduction of the European Union’s AI Act a year ago, according to research by SAP Emarsys.
Additionally, nearly half (44%) of UK marketers say their approach to AI is more ethical than it was this time last year, while 46% report a better understanding of AI ethics, and 48% claim full compliance with the AI Act, which is designed to ensure safe and transparent AI.
The act sets out a phased approach to regulating the technology, classifying models into risk categories and setting up legal, technological, and governance frameworks which will come into place over the next two years.
However, some marketers are sceptical about the legislation, with 28% raising concerns that the AI Act will lead to the end of innovation in marketing.
Source: SAP Emarsys
Shoppers more likely to trust user reviews than influencers
Nearly two-thirds (65%) of UK consumers say they have made a purchase based on online reviews or comments from fellow shoppers, as opposed to 58% who say they have made a purchase thanks to a social media endorsement.
Sports and leisure equipment (63%), decorative homewares (58%), luxury goods (56%), and cultural events (55%) are identified as product categories where consumers are most likely to find peer-to-peer information valuable.
Accurate product information was found to be a key factor in whether a review was positive or negative. Two-thirds (66%) of UK shoppers say that discrepancies between the product they receive and its description are a key reason for leaving negative reviews, whereas 40% of respondents say they have returned an item in the past year because the product details were inaccurate or misleading.
According to research by Akeeno, purchases driven by influencer activity have also declined since 2023, with 50% reporting having made a purchase based on influencer content in 2025 compared to 54% two years ago.
Source: Akeeno
77% of B2B marketing leaders say buyers still rely on their networks
When vetting what brands to work with, 77% of B2B marketing leaders say potential buyers still look at the company’s wider network as well as its own channels.
Given the amount of content professionals are faced with, they are more likely to rely on other professionals they already know and trust, according to research from LinkedIn.
More than two-fifths (43%) of B2B marketers globally say their network is still their primary source for advice at work, ahead of family and friends, search engines, and AI tools.
Additionally, younger professionals surveyed say they are still somewhat sceptical of AI, with three-quarters (75%) of 18- to 24-year-olds saying that even as AI becomes more advanced, there’s still no substitute for the intuition and insights they get from trusted colleagues.
Since professionals are more likely to trust content and advice from peers, marketers are now investing more in creators, employees, and subject matter experts to build trust. As a result, 80% of marketers say trusted creators are now essential to earning credibility with younger buyers.
Source: LinkedIn
Business confidence up 11 points but leaders remain concerned about economy
Business leader confidence has increased slightly from last month, having risen from -72 in July to -61 in August.
The IoD Directors’ Economic Confidence Index, which measures business leader optimism in prospects for the UK economy, is now back to where it was immediately after last year’s Budget.
This improvement comes from several factors, including the rise in investment intentions (up from -27 in July to -8 in August), the rise in headcount expectations from -23 to -4 over the same period, and the increase in revenue expectations from -8 to 12.
Additionally, business leaders’ confidence in their own organisations is also up, standing at 1 in August compared to -9 in July.
Several factors were identified as being of concern for business leaders; these include UK economic conditions at 76%, up from 67% in May, and both employment taxes (remaining at 59%) and business taxes (up to 47%, from 45%) continuing to be of significant concern.
Source: The Institute of Directors
Total volume of alcohol sold in retail down 2.3%
The total volume of alcohol sold in retail has fallen by 2.3% in the first half of 2025 compared to the previous year, equivalent to 90 million fewer litres. Value sales are also down by 1.1% compared to the same period in 2024.
At the same time, retail sales of non-alcoholic drinks have increased by 5.5% compared to last year, while volume sales are up by 2.3%, equivalent to a further 1.5 billion litres.
As the demand for non-alcoholic beverages grows, people increasingly expect these options to be available in their local bars and restaurants, with 55% of Brits and Europeans now expecting bars to always serve non-alcoholic beer.
As well as this, there are shifts happening within the alcoholic beverages category with value sales of no and low-alcohol spirits rising by 16.1%, and sales of ready-to-drink spirits growing by 11.6% compared to last year.
Nearly two-thirds (65%) of UK consumers say they have made a purchase based on online reviews or comments from fellow shoppers, as opposed to 58% who say they have made a purchase thanks to a social media endorsement.
When vetting what brands to work with, 77% of B2B marketing leaders say potential buyers still look at the company’s wider network as well as its own channels.
Business leader confidence has increased slightly from last month, having risen from -72 in July to -61 in August.
The total volume of alcohol sold in retail has fallen by 2.3% in the first half of 2025 compared to the previous year, equivalent to 90 million fewer litres. Value sales are also down by 1.1% compared to the same period in 2024.
