Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' (1726) Predicted Machine-Written Books, Anticipating ChatGPT by Three Centuries
In Jonathan Swift's 1726 satire, Gulliver's Travels, a device known as "the Engine" is introduced at the Academy of Projectors in Lagado, capable of generating text across various disciplines without the need for brilliance. Chris Garcia, in an article for the Computer History Museum, points out that this represents one of the earliest references to a computer, occurring more than a century before Charles Babbage's inventions. He proposes that the Engine acts as a random-number generator. This analysis was published almost a decade prior to the debut of ChatGPT, which shifted views on computational abilities. Literature scholar Robin Bates emphasizes that Swift's visionary ideas remain relevant, as they critique the neglect of human nature in innovative pursuits.
Key facts
- Jonathan Swift published Gulliver's Travels in 1726
- The novel features a text-generating device called "the Engine" at the Academy of Projectors in Lagado
- The Engine was built of wood and wire and operated by young crankers, readers, and scribes
- Chris Garcia of the Computer History Museum called it one of the earliest literary mentions of a machine resembling a computer
- The Engine predates Charles Babbage's calculating engine designs by over a hundred years
- Garcia's post appeared nearly ten years before ChatGPT's launch
- Swift's satire targeted the Royal Society rather than artificial intelligence
- Literature professor Robin Bates cites Swift's imagined experiments including extracting sunbeams from cucumbers and replacing silkworms with spiders
- The Open Culture article was written by Colin Marshall, based in Seoul
Entities
Artists
- Jonathan Swift
- Charles Babbage
- Chris Garcia
- Robin Bates
- Colin Marshall
Institutions
- Royal Society
- Computer History Museum
- Open Culture
- ChatGPT
- Academy of Projectors
Locations
- Lagado
- Seoul
- South Korea