By Matthew Ehret
Part 1: Newton, Rosicrucianism and the Imperial Control of Science
Part 2: Tesla’s Eugenics (and other Black Magick)
Part 3: Tesla and his Nazi Friend… The Strangest Friendship
Part 4: Tesla’s Martians and H.G. Wells
Part 5: Tesla: From Extreme Empiricist to Father of A.I. Gods
Part 6: Why Tesla Flattened Space and Attacked Einstein
Many people have played important roles in contributing to the emergence of the thing known as “Artificial Intelligence” over the years… although a dispute has raged over what this thing called ‘A.I’ actually is.
One camp has defined A.I as simply an extension of automation and computing in the service of human needs. This camp has tended to promote A.I. from a rational point of view by using algorithms created by humans to engage in a limited albeit very useful form of problem solving… but ultimately incapable of replacing human creative reason.
Another camp has chosen to see A.I from a more mystical, yet ironically still Darwinian, vantage point.
Those more religiously-inclined promoters of A.I tend to fall under the category of “transhumanist” and tend to treat artificial intelligence as a supernatural demonic Darwinian force beyond human free will or intentions, that compels humanity towards its own extinction.
Among this much more unhealthy perspective, debates tend to be shaped by those who, like Ted Kaczynski (aka: The Unabomber) or other radical eco-terrorists, believe that technology evolves completely independently of human thought, resulting in a deterministic belief that machines being more “fit to survive”, will necessary enslave and destroy humanity. As such, this group tends to also promote going to war with the demonic/Darwinian force of technology before Skynet inevitably enslaves and destroys biological mortal humans at an imagined future point dubbed ‘the singularity’.
In opposition to this group, we find other believers in transhumanism like Elon Musk, Google’s Ray Kurzweil or Yuval Harari, promoting the integration of human beings with technology through a variety of techniques (neural chips, mRNA biotech, CRISPR babies, virtual reality, brain drugs, etc) in order to “stay relevant” while the evolutionary forces of technology grow to god-like proportions. Among this group, we find its members tending to sympathize with the figure of “world controller” Mustafa Mond in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (against the eco-anarchist archetype of John Savage).
Tesla’s New Species of Thinking Machine
In recent years, many have identified the “father” of trans-humanism and today’s AI cult to be Boston mathematician John McCarthy, while others have chosen to credit cybernetics founder Norbert Wiener with the honor. Others believe it to be game theorist John von Neumann and yet others still have posited Alan Turing to deserve the title.
While all of those accreditations may participate in degrees of truth, I believe that those who credit Nikola Tesla for the title of father of artificial intelligence to be closer to the mark.
Nikola Tesla had a very particular relationship with robots and explicitly considered these beings which he called his ‘Telautomata’ to be nothing less than a new species that he himself had “evolved”!
Not only did Tesla believe that he evolved new soul-less beings (as he believed himself to be), but he also believed that this new “species” would provide a total understanding of the machine known as “human”. Perhaps most jarring, is that Tesla also believed that this new species would help future social engineers better understand how the human machine could be more effectively programmed.
In 1898, Tesla took out a patent on a remote-controlled three foot boat which he dubbed his ‘Telautomaton’, and for the next two years showcased his machine to amazed crowds at the electrical expositions across the USA.
In his dozens of performances, Tesla persuaded his audiences to talk to his machines by asking mathematical questions. The remote-controlled machine would in turn respond using blinking lights.
Tesla wasn’t afraid to use a fair bit of stage magic to manipulate his audience’s perceptions and when asked how he controls his automatons, Tesla stated:
“By an effort of will… I can stand two meters away from that instrument and by a mere stiffening of my muscles cause it to send a signal. It is so delicate in its adjustment that the disturbance of the electrical equilibrium caused by my muscular action affects it.”
It turned out that the motive force was less Tesla’s superhuman force of will and control over his neck muscles (in an 1898 version of Elon Musk’s Neuralink)… and more of a hidden assistant managing a remote controller away from the audience’s field of perception. Again, techniques of spiritualist stage magicians crops up once more in this story (and will do so many more times in future installments).
Nikola Tesla’s strange showmanship did seem a little reminiscent of the 2021 display by his spiritual heir Elon Musk who promoted the cutting edge new A.I- robotic Tesla bots which he foresaw as interfacing with neural link brain chips. The fact that that the 21st century Telautomaton was sold by a human dressed in a robot suit should make one as uncomfortable as an 1898 spectator realizing that Tesla wasn’t actually controlling his remote controlled toy with his neck muscles and will…
In a 1900 article, Nikola Tesla wrote of his new evolved automata:
“The art that I have evolved does not contemplate merely the change of direction of a moving vessel; it affords a means of absolutely controlling, in every respect all the innumerable transitory movements as well as the operations of all the internal organs, no matter how many, of an individual automaton”[1]
There are several things to observe here:
1) Tesla’s use of the term ‘evolved’. Coming from a follower of Herbert Spencer and Galton (recall from part 2 of this series that Tesla was a eugenicist), this statement carries a lot of baggage. Thus his use of the term ‘I have evolved’ when describing what he treated as a new species should make anyone aware of the religious cult of transhumanism more than a little uncomfortable.
2) Tesla’s belief that he had achieved a demonstration of an accurate analogue for humanity which somehow proved in his own mind, the non-existence of soul. This indicates that Tesla placed himself into the position of a God/creator (albeit strangely a god that didn’t have any free will which he rejected in even himself).
Recall that Tesla believes that all humans (including himself) are automatons, meaning he believes that future creator/alpha machines like him will inevitably act as a master-race/higher automata to the lower automata that will be programmed. On this point, Tesla directly stated: “I am proving constantly, by every thought and act of mine, that I am nothing more than automaton, responding to external stimuli and passing through an infinitude of different existences from the cradle to the grave.”
The spirit of Nikola Tesla can thus be heard loud and clear in the rambling prophecies of the new Transhumanist priest Yuval Noah Harari:
Recall in this light, Tesla’s 1937 remarks to George Sylvester Viereck: “what we call ‘soul’ or ‘spirit,’ is nothing more than the sum of the functionings of the body. When this functioning ceases, the ‘soul’ or the ‘spirit’ ceases likewise”.
Tesla’s disturbing philosophy of robotics, his disdain for free will, and transhumanist proclivities are a deep cause of concern. But in order to properly appreciate where all of this is coming from, it is useful to visit a little known 1907 interview titled ‘Tidal Wave to Make War Impossible’, where Tesla described the future of the new species that he had evolved saying: “It will perform the duties of an intelligent slave. Many of us will live to see Bulwer’s dream realized.” [2]
The huge importance of Tesla’s reference to the figure of Sir Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whose dream, he believed himself to have helped realize, has largely gone unnoticed for over a century, and this has caused one of the most important pieces of the “Tesla enigma” to be missed by all researchers.
We will explore the incredible importance of this connection to the leading occultist, imperial grand strategist and father of the Rosicrucian revival in the next episode “Bulwer’s Dream and the Coming Race”.
Footnotes
[1] Tesla, “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy,” 188.
[2] Tesla’s Tidal Wave to Make War Impossible, 1907] where Tesla describes the future self-thinking machines as more evolved forms of his Telautomata saying: “A mechanism is being perfected which without operator in control, left to itself, will behave as if endowed with intelligence of its own. It will be responsive to the faintest external influences and from these, unaided, determine its subsequent actions as if possessed of selective qualities, logic, and reason. It will perform the duties of an intelligent slave. Many of us will live to see Bulwer’s dream realized.”
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