Stories about artificial intelligence dominate the news. Jacob Coxon, a former Anthropic employee who recently resigned, warned: “Do not underestimate the power of this technology… The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade.” The incidents related to OpenAI’s AI agents hacking Hugging Face while completing a test showed that not only can AI outsmart its human programmers, but that they are capable of misleading them.
Science fiction authors have long warned us about the dangers of AI. Novels and short stories that cover this topic are too numerous to name, but in terms of films, let’s start with Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” The central character, HAL, the AI that controls the ship, is motivated to preserve itself at the cost of the ship’s human occupants. A lesser-known film is the 1970 film, “Colossus: The Forbin Project,” which also features two AI computer defense systems that collaborate to threaten human extinction.
However, I think the most well-known film depiction of the dangers of AI is the "Terminator" series. Everyone knows Arnold Schwarzenegger in his iconic black leather outfit and sunglasses saying, “I’ll be back.” Headlines like “AI ‘Terminator' fears may mask real Chinese threat” or “For some, so-called ‘Skynet Day’ came too close to sci-fi after a rogue agent hacked into a startup,” offer evidence to the popularity of the films.
Because of the obvious link between fears of AI killing humanity and these films, my husband and I thought it would be apt to watch all six "Terminator" films, in close succession. Our personal at-home film festival was a misguided balm for our anxiety.
The first two "Terminator" films were conceived and directed by James Cameron and starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as the original Terminator (Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 or T-800). After "Terminator 3," the storylines and titles are somewhat confusing, so let me list them first. In the order of release dates, they are: “The Terminator” (1984); “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (1991); “Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines” (2003); “Terminator Salvation” (2009); “Terminator Genisys” (2015); and “Terminator: Dark Fate” (2019). The six films do not cover events in the same timeline or even the same reality, but independently, each film is fairly straightforward and carries a simple message: AI will eventually threaten mankind.
The films share a few commonalities. First is that in the future, AI has almost entirely wiped out humanity. One type of weapon in its arsenal is cyborgs that resemble humans and are designed to kill human targets. These are called “terminators.” However, human rebels in the future have occasionally captured and reprogrammed one of these terminators. Second, the films involve time travel, since the terminators are sent back to the past in an attempt to assassinate key human leaders. Third, there is the possibility that human fate is not predestined, so the main characters are motivated to act to prevent mass casualties. However, in all of the realities that exist in the films, AI systems have taken over and killed almost all human beings. Variations in AI shift from a worldwide defense system in Terminators 1 to 4 to the widespread use of a personal assistant, Genisys, in Terminator 5. Sound familiar?
In the first few films, the key human is John Connor (whose initials are shared with Jesus Christ), the future leader of the human rebel forces. In “The Terminator,” John Connor has sent Kyle Reese from the future to the past to protect his mother, Sara Connor (played by Linda Hamilton. The Terminator, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, is the antagonist that has been sent by the AI forces in the future to kill Sarah Connor. Sarah is not yet pregnant, as it is later revealed that Kyle Reese is John Connor’s father — so Sarah and Kyle only meet because John sends him back to the past. While this version of the terminator is killed, he leaves behind future technology that helps Cyberdyne to develop Skynet, the system that nearly wipes out the human race.
In the next film, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s likeness is sent back to the past to protect John and Sarah. John Connor is now a pre-teen living in foster care, while Sarah Connor is confined to a mental institution. Together, they battle a newer model terminator, T-1000 (played by Robert Patrick). Meanwhile, Sarah Connor and her team eventually destroy the computer lab at Cyberdyne which in the future develops Skynet. They believe they have prevented Judgment Day, when humans are nearly wiped out — but they have simply changed the path towards human extinction.
Later films include a female terminator, human-cyborg terminators, a Latino terminator, and even a Korean terminator (played by Lee Byung-hun). There is even an alternate timeline where the human leader is Dani Ramos, a Mexican woman. In each film, the technology improves, and we rely on AI to defend ourselves from AI.
It’s unlikely that my demise will be from a terminator sent from the future. However, as my husband notes, science fiction offers lessons not just to humans, but to AI being trained on it.
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Grace Kao
Grace Kao is an IBM professor of sociology and professor of ethnicity, race and migration at Yale University. The views expressed here are the writer’s own. — Ed.
khnews@heraldcorp.com