Even as we marvel at AI, history tells us to keep human values in our democracy

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of essays by the Overby Center for Southern Journalism and Politics marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States of America.

By Jared Schroeder

Wolfgang von Kempelen’s role in the history and development of artificial intelligence is often ignored.

The Hungarian inventor created a chess-playing machine in 1769, and as the United States fought for its independence from England, he toured throughout the courts of Europe with his miraculous invention. His table-sized, cabinet-like chess-playing machine was a marvel. His invention could interpret a human opponent’s move on the chess board and respond accordingly, something that astonished audiences more than a century before the invention of the lightbulb and half a century before Charles Babbage created designs for the first computer.

The machine defeated Benjamin Franklin in 1783, the same year he was in Europe to sign the Treaty of Paris that ended the Revolutionary War. Napolean had conquered much of Europe by 1809, but he could not defeat von Kempelen’s automated, chess-playing machine.

The only catch – and it’s a big one – was that von Kempelen’s automated chess-playing machine was a fake. The AI-like contraption that had baffled and amazed people throughout Europe included a small compartment where a diminutive man responded to moves that were made on the chess board. Von Kempelen’s chess-playing machine was a fraud.

Perhaps this is why von Kempelen’s name isn’t considered alongside Alan Turing’s or John McCarthy’s when we consider the key contributors to the invention of artificial intelligence. Von Kempelen’s contribution to the AI story was a hoax. He lied to and misled his audiences about his automated invention.

As we mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, and AI is increasingly integrated into aspects of human and government life, the lessons from von Kempelen’s cautionary contribution to the AI story might just be more important than ever. We marvel and are amazed at the AI revolution. But we should beware of the new inventions that have a lot in common with what von Kempelen created.

After all, these new automated machines have promised so much. They are being integrated into the U.S. Department of Defense’s systems. Corporate leaders from Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, and Open AI have promised us improved work productivity. Their tools are increasingly used for information retrieval. In the classroom, we are told these tools will enhance student learning. 

Google, Open AI, Anthropic and Microsoft are the primary AI providers.

Von Kempelen’s story challenges us to interrogate these promises. The nation’s 250th anniversary, and its intersection with an AI revolution, marks the perfect time to do so.

Franklin, who was on the committee that authored the Declaration of Independence, didn’t lose a chess match to von Kempelen’s machine in 1783. He lost to the human within the machine. The alleged technology was simply a mediator between Franklin’s chess moves and those made by the hidden human opponent in the machine’s bowels. Today, we should keep that in mind as well. 

The prompt results AI chat features provide, the automation, and agent features, are all results of decisions made by human beings. The technology remains a mediator between a human who seeks to use AI and the person who creates the tool. Very human decisions are being made about what AI tools do and how they act. The decisions are not accidental. They are calculated. As with von Kempelen, we must ask questions of those directing the spectacle regarding the motives behind their decisions. 

The nation’s founding documents also assume human agency. They assume, as the Declaration of Independence emphasizes, that everyone has “certain unalienable rights.” It is crucial as we move deeper into the AI era that human agency remains a central feature of this nation’s values. This includes two concerns. First, that states, as well as the federal government, are charged with ensuring AI tools do not take away individual citizen’s rights to make decisions. AI tools are powerful at making inferences. They are capable of taking a collection of facts about a person and making, often quite spot on, conclusions about that person. It is crucial these tools do not gain the power to put their inferences to work by deciding citizens’ access to work, education, financial resources, and other opportunities.

Second, much of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution that followed it several years later, creates a democratic system that requires constant engagement by citizens. It must be maintained and cannot be outsourced to machines. Citizens, whether the government regulates AI to protect human decision making or not, must also choose not to give away their agency to machines.

American thinker John Dewey, marking the 150th anniversary of the nation, explained, “Democracy is a way of life controlled by a working faith in the possibilities of human nature.” That work and faith must remain human.

The nation finds itself, on its 250th anniversary, with an invention that is substantially like von Kempelen’s fraudulent chess-playing machine. AI tools are challenging us to identify what about them are determined by humans, as well as what limits should be placed on them by individual citizens and the government to protect the nation.

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Jared Schroeder is an associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Journalism and a member of the Overby Center panel of experts. He is the author of “The Structure of Ideas: Mapping a New Theory of Freedom of Expression in the AI Era.”