This week I encountered some heavy and slick promotion for a book from 2022. The publicity was immediately undermined by its flaky title of Mount Doom: The Prophecy of Tolkien Revealed, and further doomed for me by the off-putting blurb… “This complete reinterpretation of the Lord of the Rings mythology will forever change how the world understands J.R.R. Tolkien and his life’s work.” Oh, really?

The book’s final doom was sealed on reading the claim, in the blurb for a podcast author interview, that… “J.R.R. Tolkien worked on the Enigma code-cracking project with Alan Turing, father of Artificial Intelligence”. Erm, nope.

But, being interested in A.I. and its future I took a look at the book anyway.

Turns out it’s a chunky American and Catholic book from 2022, warning against the potential of A.I. In over 500 pages it apparently assiduously references Tolkien’s work in terms of pointing out how it might now be read as prophesy. Evidently the book is being pushed again, as A.I. develops at a blistering pace and as the new Pope strings A.I. onto his favourite set of worry-beads.

I can’t find any reviews of the book, other than a half-dozen Amazon five-star gushers which don’t feel very trustworthy. Another bad sign.

But the premise is intriguing: the authors drew on Tolkien’s focus on machinery in the service of overbearing ambition, which together necessitate idolatry, servitude and slavery. Such powers can create, but only as befouling machinery and distorted mimicry. But Tolkien presents this as merely a forerunner of a larger power which seeks total control of thought and free-will — and this power actually has the advanced all-seeing all-reaching mind-invading technology to achieve its ends. Yes, I can see the clear links there with A.I. as it currently stands. But the book’s grandiose claims and apparent casual invention of biographical details don’t inspire me to buy it and read it. Still, it’s of note — since it plays to a small-but-growing doomer crowd who want to see Tolkien as one of their prophets of doom. We may see more such in the future, possibly even researched and written mostly by an AI. 🙂