Grace Kind

Revisiting Patrick Gunkel's 'Future Headlines'

In the notes for his 1983 book "More Human Than Man", Patrick Gunkel includes a list of "Future Headlines Related to Metamachines" with the subtitle "Fanciful Possibilities".

Here's the list:

List of fictional headlines from Patrick Gunkel's 1983 book, 'More Human Than Man'

From today's vantage point, it's clear that many of these headlines were not far-fetched at all. Below, I've matched Gunkel's headlines with real headlines that have been published since the list was created.


  1. "World Chess Champion A Machine!"

    Swift and Slashing, Computer Topples Kasparov - New York Times (1997)

  2. "Man Vs. Machine! / Assembly-Line Workers Smash Detroit Robots"

  3. "American Robot Soldiers Trounce Guerrillas"

  4. "Machine Improves Beethoven's Ninth"

    Team uses AI to complete Beethoven's unfinished masterpiece - NPR (2021)

  5. "U.S. Joins Third World In Demanding Japan Share Its Robots"

  6. "Robots Demonstrate For Rights"

  7. "Man Found Guilty of Using Android To Kill Wife"

  8. "Congress Passes New Anti-Robot Legislation"

    More Details Emerge about the “No Robot Bosses Act”: Congress’s Latest Effort to Regulate Automated Systems and Artificial Intelligence in Employment - National Law Review (2023) - (hasn't passed, but close enough!)

  9. "Robot Goes Berserk and Mauls Housewife"

  10. "More Vandalism Upon Robot Street Cleaners"

  11. "Exhibition of Latest Robot Art"

    This robot artist has made it to London Design Biennale - Wired (2024)

  12. "Soviet Premier Denounces Robots As Enemies of the Working Class"

  13. "'Chief Justice Urges Broader Reliance On Robot Judges and Juries"

  14. "Grade-Seven Robots Granted Suffrage/Technocrats Celebrate Victory"

  15. "Students Found Passing Homework To the Family Robot"

    Chinese Girl Finds a Way Out of Tedious Homework: Make a Robot Do It - The New York Times (2019)

  16. "Fierce Patient Competition For Robot Surgeons/Human Surgeons Increasingly
    Disdained"

  17. "'Last Human Farmers Struggle To Survive"

  18. "Machine Declares For Presidency/Admits Candidacy Purely Symbolic"

  19. "Computer Passes Turing Test For Human Psychology/Scores Higher Than Men On
    Test of Humanity"

  20. "Kids Lower Educational Goals/No Interest In Competing With Smarter Machines"

  21. "Wave of the Future: Robot Students?"

  22. "Computer Finds Flaws In Einstein Theory/Axiomatizing Effort Yields Fundamental
    Surprises"

  23. "Space Mining Via Robots A New Industry/Experts Expect Rapid Growth"

    Global Asteroid Mining Market Size To Exceed USD 8.40 Billion By 2033 - Yahoo Finance (2024)

  24. "Machine Composes 10,000 Symphonies Daily/Synthesizes Own Instruments/
    Concertgoers Like What They Hear But Not What They See"

    Robots can now paint portraits and write symphonies – but are they any good? - The Telegraph (2019)

  25. "'Priest' Computer Program Added To Household Computer Networks/Writer Who
    Meant Joke Is Appalled, Now Views Clergy Askance"'

    Catholic Answers shelves AI priest 'Father Justin' following backlash - The Christian Post (2024)

  26. "Man Weds His Computer/Ceremony Conducted Over Computer Network"

    Japanese man marries computer-generated hologram in $18K wedding ceremony - Global News (2018)

  27. "'A.I. Becoming World's Leading Industry"

  28. "Most 'Best Friends' Are Now Machines!"

  29. "Heads of State Confer About How To Control A.I. Research"'

    AI Seoul Summit: World leaders agree to launch network of safety institutes - Euronews (2024)

  30. "President Now Cedes Many Decisions To Intelligent Computers"

  31. "Remade Into An Algorithm, Beethoven's Fifth Is Now Neither Finite Nor Unique"

  32. "'Sage' Home A.I. System Automatically Researches and Answers All Questions/
    Limited Only By the User"

    ChatGPT: New AI chatbot has everyone talking to it - BBC (2022)

  33. "Cosmologists Use A.I. To Study Properties of Other Universes"

  34. "Quintillions of Ultraminiature Pseudo-Bacterial Robots Used To Control Insect Pests"

  35. "Mechanical Cat Catches Mice/Mousetraps On Way Out"

  36. "Nobel Prize For Chemistry Goes To An M.I.T. A.I. Program/Ultraparallel
    Computer Used To Create New Field of 'Holistic Chemistry'"'

  37. "Personalities and Lives of Historical Figures Simulated By A.I./'Simulatees'
    Lecture, Answer Questions, Converse, Argue, and Fight With One Another/
    Boon To Historians/But Some Dismiss As Illusory"

    A chatbot that lets you talk with Jesus and Hitler is the latest controversy in the AI gold rush - NBC News (2023)

  38. "Computer Predicts A Man's Behavior/New Doubts About Free-will"

  39. "Robot Tax System Enacted/Insures All Benefit From Robotization/Dawn of A
    New Socioeconomic Age"'

    South Korea introduces world's first 'robot tax' - Telegraph (2017)

  40. "Annual G.N.P. Growth Rate Tops 30%/Robots That Reproduce and Improve Themselves
    Are the Reason/Old Rate Restraints Defunct"'

  41. "Noologist Declares 'Mankind Must Now Raise Computers'"

  42. "Computer Scientists Told They 'Must Aim To Create Kindness' In A Machine"

    ‘Comfortable, fun, familiar’: Why Microsoft is trying to turn its AI chatbot into a digital friend - CNN (2024)

So far, 14 of the 42 headlines have come to pass (33%).

I will aim to keep this page up-to-date periodically. If you have any suggestions for headlines to add, please let me know!


Page last updated: November 5, 2024