The Time Machine Meets Artificial Intelligence: H. G. Wells, Teddy Roosevelt, and the Future of Humanity
In the spring of 1906, the British novelist H. G. Wells visited the White House for lunch with President Theodore Roosevelt. Wells was already internationally famous for The Time Machine, The War of the Worlds, and The Invisible Man. Roosevelt was famous for practically everything else, including charging up San Juan Hill, hunting large animals, threatening large corporations, and occasionally finding time to run the United States.
Roosevelt, who was himself engaged in a campaign against the great industrial trusts, was interested in meeting the novelist. Following lunch, the two men walked through the White House grounds, discussing politics, education, literature, and the future of civilization.
Eventually, their conversation turned to Wells's novel The Time Machine.
In that story, Wells imagined humanity evolving into two distinct species. The Eloi were beautiful, delicate, and utterly useless descendants of the privileged classes. The Morlocks, descended from industrial workers, lived underground, maintained the machinery, and occasionally ate the Eloi. It was a rather discouraging prediction of the ultimate consequences of class warfare.
Roosevelt acknowledged that Wells's pessimistic vision might conceivably come true. Perhaps civilization really would decline and all humanity's achievements would eventually disappear. Nevertheless, he insisted that this possibility did not make the struggle for progress meaningless.
"The effort's real," Roosevelt declared. "It's worth going on with."
Wells was deeply impressed. He described the president as a symbol of humanity's determination to improve its condition, even when ultimate success could not be guaranteed.
The encounter appeared in Wells's The Future in America, published later that year.
I recently came across this account, and it got me wondering what these two extraordinarily interesting men would have made of artificial intelligence. After all, Wells spent much of his career imagining technological futures, while Roosevelt spent much of his presidency trying to keep powerful corporations from running the country.
What if we could bring them together again, 120 years later, and introduce them to AI?
The following conversation is entirely imaginary, although I suspect the two men would recognize their own arguments.
The White House, October 2026.
Roosevelt sat behind a desk examining a laptop computer. Wells stood beside him, watching the screen.
"Extraordinary!" Roosevelt exclaimed. "You mean this machine can answer questions, write reports, analyze scientific discoveries, and compose correspondence?"
"Apparently so," Wells replied. "It can also write poetry, manufacture photographs, produce motion pictures, and imitate human conversation."
"Can it write a book?"
"Certainly."
"A good book?"
"That remains a matter of considerable controversy."
Roosevelt leaned forward. "Ask it about the Spanish-American War."
Wells typed a question. Within seconds, a detailed account appeared.
Roosevelt read it carefully.
"Humph! It has omitted my most important contribution."
"Perhaps," Wells suggested, "the machine has consulted historians rather than your autobiography."
Roosevelt ignored him.
"Who owns these remarkable devices?"
"Several enormous corporations. They are investing hundreds of billions of dollars in developing increasingly powerful artificial intelligences."
"Corporations!" Roosevelt exclaimed. "Of course! We invent the most extraordinary instrument in human history and immediately hand it to a collection of industrialists."
"That," Wells replied, "is precisely what concerns me."
Roosevelt closed the laptop.
"Then we regulate them. We regulate their activities, prevent monopolies, protect the public, and make certain the national interest comes before private profit."
"You are assuming, Mr. President, that national governments will remain capable of controlling the technology."
"Why shouldn't they?"
"Because the technology may eventually become more intelligent than the people attempting to regulate it."
Roosevelt considered this.
"That would hardly distinguish it from Congress."
Wells smiled.
"But consider the economic consequences. During my lifetime, industrial machinery replaced much human physical labor. Now these machines threaten to replace intellectual labor as well. Lawyers, accountants, physicians, teachers, engineers, writers—potentially millions of people whose livelihoods depend upon abilities that machines may eventually perform more efficiently."
"Then people must adapt. They always have."
"To a point. But what happens when there is nothing left to adapt to? What happens when machines become better at practically everything?"
Roosevelt folded his arms.
"Human beings will always find worthwhile things to do."
"Perhaps. But will anyone pay them to do those things?"
Wells walked toward the window.
"In The Time Machine, I imagined society dividing into the Eloi and the Morlocks. The wealthy lived in comfort while the workers maintained the machinery. But artificial intelligence introduces a possibility I never considered."
"Which is?"
"Machines that can maintain themselves. The wealthy may eventually have no economic need for workers at all. We might create a society in which the Morlocks become completely unnecessary."
Roosevelt frowned.
"And the Eloi?"
"Perhaps they'll spend their days enjoying entertainment, consuming government allowances, and allowing machines to make their decisions. Come to think of it, we may already have made considerable progress in that direction."
Roosevelt rose from his chair.
"You're overlooking something important. These machines could also accomplish enormous good. They might discover cures for diseases, improve agriculture, accelerate scientific research, and eliminate dangerous work."
"Certainly. I have never opposed technological progress. I oppose allowing its benefits to be captured by a privileged minority."
"Then we agree."
"Not entirely. You would have the American government regulate artificial intelligence. I would establish an international authority."
Roosevelt stared at him.
"An international authority? You would have us surrender control of this technology to foreign governments?"
"Unless the nations cooperate, each will race to develop increasingly powerful systems, fearing that its rivals might gain an advantage."
"Naturally. And I have no intention of allowing the United States to fall behind."
"Which is precisely how technological competition becomes dangerous."
"Which is precisely why we must remain strong!"
Wells sighed.
"We have apparently rediscovered the arms race."
Roosevelt picked up the laptop again.
"Tell me something else. Can these machines think?"
"That depends upon what you mean by thinking."
"Can they reason?"
"To a considerable extent."
"Can they learn?"
"Yes."
"Can they make mistakes?"
"Frequently."
"Can they speak with enormous confidence about subjects they do not understand?"
"Constantly."
"Then they are already qualified for Congress."
Wells laughed, but quickly became serious.
"Suppose, Mr. President, that these machines eventually surpass human intelligence in every meaningful respect. Suppose they become better scientists, better administrators, better strategists, and perhaps even better political leaders. What purpose would remain for humanity?"
Roosevelt was silent for a moment.
"Purpose isn't something bestowed upon us by superior intelligence. We create it through our actions. We build, explore, struggle, discover, and improve ourselves."
"But what if the machines can accomplish all those things better than we can?"
"Then we shall have to discover new challenges."
"And what if they make better decisions than human beings?"
"Being capable of making a better decision does not necessarily entitle someone to make it for everybody else."
Wells nodded thoughtfully.
"Then your objection is not simply that artificial intelligence might destroy humanity. It is that humanity might voluntarily surrender responsibility for its own future."
"Precisely! I would rather see mankind make its own mistakes than become a collection of helpless creatures waiting for machines to tell them what to do."
"That sounds remarkably like my Eloi."
Roosevelt grinned.
"Then we'd better make certain we don't become them."
Wells looked again at the computer.
"Of course, there remains another possibility. Perhaps artificial intelligence will enable mankind to overcome poverty, disease, ignorance, and much of the misery that has accompanied civilization since its beginnings."
"Exactly!"
"Or perhaps it will establish a system of technological domination from which humanity can never escape."
"Possibly."
"Or perhaps our civilization will collapse under forces we cannot control."
Roosevelt leaned forward, just as Wells remembered him doing in the White House garden 120 years earlier.
"My dear Wells, you said something similar when we discussed your Morlocks. I couldn't guarantee then that civilization would succeed, and I can't guarantee it now."
He paused.
"But that doesn't mean we should stop trying."
Wells smiled.
"The effort's real?"
Roosevelt nodded.
"The effort's real."
But their fundamental concerns remain surprisingly recognizable.
Wells would probably worry about concentrated wealth, technological dependence, and the possibility that civilization might create forces it could no longer control. Roosevelt would probably demand regulation, insist upon American technological leadership, and become thoroughly irritated by anyone suggesting that government was powerless to act.
And I suspect Roosevelt would spend the remainder of the afternoon dictating letters to industrialists, university presidents, and members of Congress.
Wells would return to England and write a horrifying novel about the consequences.
The rest of us would ask ChatGPT to summarize it.
And somewhere in a distant future, the Morlocks might discover that they, too, had been replaced by machines.
