The world of 40k has forever been at war with the concept of Artificial Intelligence. The Imperium of Man ever wrestles with its fear of Men of Iron whilst simultaneously protecting and pacifying its myriad machine spirits. They preach against the return of ‘Abominable Intelligences’ while they battle the supernatural might of Daemon Engines. Even among the Xenos countercultures do we see a melding of soul and circuitry in the Engram Neurochips of the T’au and the precious Infinity Circuits at the hearts of each Craftworld. Whilst each faction tackles this spiritual question differently, 40k often returns to notions of embodiment, using complex interactions with the “natural” to interrogate the sanctity of personhood.
Within a medium so interested in the monstrous potential of the body, and how that can be corrupted or alienated, how is this complicated by the transgression of the boundary between biological and mechanical? What makes a Dreadnought distinct from a Machine Spirit? Like the Ship of Theseus, at what stage does the weakness of flesh become the horror of the artificial?
Conversations surrounding AI have changed considerably since much of the 41st Millennium was first set in tone, and our relationship to (and understanding of) this aspect of our technological landscape has also evolved considerably. The fictional environment of willful, or perhaps enforced, ignorance surrounding the nature of AI both differs and resonates with our modern poverty of understanding around its capabilities. With this context in mind, we seek to unpick the implications of Games Workshop’s storytelling on this subject. This paper will contrast specific literary depictions of AI in 40k with surrounding science fictional material, to analyse whether it presents unique perspectives or questions about this topic, or whether it simply clings to the STCs of its genre.
This paper does not primarily set out to use Warhammer 40k to understand the reality of AI, but instead examines how its humorous and hyperbolic worldbuilding presents its own unique moral conflicts on the topic of the artificial thinking entity.
Author bio
Dr Adam Edwards and Dr Grace Feehan are both Nottingham-based independent scholars. Adam comes from an arts background, having recently finished a PhD researching the development and socio-political importance of Cyberpunk literature. His research interests surround the intersection of Science Fiction with real life technologies, and the importance of gaming narratives (both digital and analogue) in engaging broad social audiences. Grace’s computer science PhD focused on social games played between networked machine learning agents, but her background includes psychology, neuroscience and robotics, too. She enjoys researching both, AI, robots and humans within the context of artificial and natural emotions, and the structures, communication and ethics of these.
