Innovation in the 19th & 21st Century - What Would the Mayor of Baden Do?

Around 1887 Karl Benz had created a motor vehicle and driven it around the area. The first thing that the police did was to inform that to drive a mechanical vehicle in the province of Baden was against the law. He explained the future of the horseless vehicle and the precautions he had taken with his employees driving and that any prohibition on the part of the authorities would give other countries a lead in this future industry. He was given permission to drive within the boundaries of the city but to go further he would need the consent of the Minister of Baden.

He contacted the Minister who suggested speed limits of 6kmh (walking pace) within the city and 12kmh (trotting) outside. This was an unnecessary constraint and would've killed the industry in its infancy. 

Benz arranged to demonstrate his vehicle to the Minister and picked him up at Mannheim station. Benz also arranged for a milk cart to pull up alongside during the ride, let him pass and then overtake him. This was rehearsed so it didn't look too staged.  On the day Benz sent his foreman to pick up the Minister with the instruction that the speed limit was not to be exceeded. The milk cart turned up and swished past them, hurling insults and jeering at them as he went by. But even before the Minister had become impatient with the slow progress of the journey.

Once the milk cart had overtaken them the Minister said, as a response to the fact the police forbade them from travelling quicker, "we can't have milk carts passing us, push her along as hard as she will go". The Minister travelled to the factory, had the technology explained to him and was told that no further obstacles, in the form of speed-limits, would stand in his path.

This gave him impetus for further developments of the vehicle. Later at the Imperial Exhibition in Munich he would not be given official permission by the Police to demonstrate his vehicle. However the Police compromised and he was allowed to unofficially drive the car for 2 hours a day in Munich but be responsible for any damage and he was not to plead that he had been given official or unofficial permission.

More than 150 years later technology meets the same challenges as politicians who have more focus on regulation than innovation look to close down and restrict development, particularly in Europe. On the other hand they are clamouring for digitisation and wonder why the EU has not produced a Silicon Valley. 

Alas we do not have politicians with the foresight of the Mayor of Baden and the Police Force of Munich nowadays. Imagine if the EU had existed back then. It would have regulated to protect stables and carriages from the satanic majesty of the combustion engine.

Satanic Technology Through The Ages Reaches AI

 

AI and other tech breakthroughs have been treated with similar suspicion. This applies to the arrival of the printing press, the locomotive and the motor vehicle. 

Below is what happened when Gottfried Benz took his vehicle into town for a drive in the 19th Century. It was the AI breakthrough of its time.

“It was soon apparent to him that not a word about his experiments had reached the ears of those outside Mannheim… It was as though some diabolical engine of the father of evil had suddenly dropped from the clouds; children fled screaming from him to their houses; mothers made a hasty rush for their offspring and pulled them indoors as they did so. A number of the older people, less agile than the others, fell down on their knees as he approached, and made the sign of the cross on their breasts. Horses took fright, and either bolted or performed circus tricks in the middle of the road.  One young man fled in terror in front of him shouting to all at the Devil had come; men repairing the roads threw down their tools and made off across Fields as fast as their legs would carry them. in other villages he passed through, the inhabitants took up an aggressive attitude; large numbers of stones were thrown … 

In many parts of the country it was regarded as something supernatural. Astonishment, terror and hostility were intermixed, for the inhabitants seldom read newspapers and so missed the brief allusions to the new invention which were beginning to appear in the German Press.”

The motor vehicle is one of a long list of overreactions to satanic technologies. For example, “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. In all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it’s like – yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon. Doesn’t work out,” said Elon Musk in 2014.  

More recently there was a letter urging for a pause on development signed by tech leaders, professors and researchers in urged artificial intelligence labs to stop the training of the most powerful AI systems for at least six months, citing “profound risks to society and humanity.” 

The motor car provides many new opportunities and changed society. However, it put the horse and cart transport out of business. Should we have demanded a 6-month pause back then?