Did The Chrysalids predict AI?
Did John Wyndham’s The Chrysalids predict the age of AI? A simple answer is no: his 1955 sci-fi fable did not predict artificial intelligence in any literal sense.
But it did anticipate one of the defining anxieties of the AI age: what happens when a new form of intelligence emerges before society knows how to understand or deal with it?
Published in 1955, against the backdrop of Cold War nuclear anxiety, The Chrysalids imagines a society built from the ruins of what appears to be a nuclear catastrophe.
John Wyndham’s post-apocalyptic world
This remarkably prescient novel, set in a post-apocalyptic society in Waknuk, a rural community in the wilds of Canada’s Labrador, tells the story of a small but growing generation of children who develop telepathic abilities.
However, the conservative, fundamentalist society they live in feels threatened by any suggestion of deviance from the norm, as defined by the church. Anyone displaying signs of physical deviancy, whether that be an extra toe or a missing finger, is condemned by the church and exiled from the community.
Telepathy, mutation and deviance
The novel centres on David Strorm, who observes early on: “People in our district had a very sharp eye for the odd, or the unusual, so that even my left-handedness caused slight disapproval” (p. 2).
The plot thickens when David develops telepathic abilities and gradually discovers others in the community with the same gift.
As their powers grow, the group learns to conceal their mutation, knowing the grave danger they face if their deviance is exposed.
Petra and the fear of extraordinary intelligence
Everything changes with the birth of David’s sister, Petra, whose extraordinary telepathic powers far surpass anything the others have known. Her reach is so powerful that, even from Waknuk, she can overwhelm telepaths on the other side of the world.
Those in ‘Sealand’ – New Zealand, many thousands of kilometres away – recognise Petra’s extraordinary telepathic talent. However, the non-telepathic ‘norms’ of her own community regards her powers, and those of the others, such as David and his lover, Rosalind, as far more threatening than a mere physical mutation.
The novel’s sense of foreboding comes to life when Anne, one of the telepaths, marries a ‘norm’, with terrifying consequences.
Why The Chrysalids feels prescient in the AI age
The novel was very much of the time it was written, revealing the great anxiety of a Great Britain still recovering from the trauma of World War II, and fearful of the technological changes bringing economic growth, with emerging consumerism. The novel is, in short, about change, and the fear of change.
The novel is pertinent for the time we live in today, on the cusp of the AI technological revolution. But as with the Waknuk villagers deeply suspicious of change, no-one is ready, or keen.
As Dorian Lynskey puts it, AI’s public image is poor indeed: “it’s now widely seen as a job crusher, a fact mangler, a slop maker, a privacy invader, a climate trasher and a general pain in the neck. Never before has a new technology been rammed down our throats with such speed, determination and complete disregard for public opinion.”
The persecution faced by the telepaths in Wyndham’s novel reflects the widespread anxiety surrounding the rise of AI.
As with the telepaths in Waknuk, AI has arrived before we have quite worked out how to come to terms with it, morally, socially or even spiritually. It is unsettling in every way.
Instead of embracing the new possibilities, we find AI is being treated with the same attitudes displayed by the citizens of Waknuk: not with curiosity, but with fear and loathing.
-Marshall, Brisbane, June 2026