Ted Chiang on Superintelligence and Its Discontents in J.D. Beresford’s Innovative Work of Early 20t

J.D. Beresford’s The Hampdenshire Wonder is generally considered to be the first fictional treatment of superhuman intelligence, or “superintelligence.” This is a familiar trope for readers of science fiction today, but when the novel was originally published in 1911 it was anything but. What intellectual soil needed to be tilled before this idea could sprout?Article […]