Review: Terminator: The Original Killer AI

For pop culture connoisseurs, artificial intelligence has long been synonymous with Skynet, the autonomous machine network featured in James Cameron’s 1984 film The Terminator.

Skynet embodies the dreaded singularity, the theoretical point at which technology has advanced so far that it is beyond our control. In the franchise's ever-expanding story – which has so far spanned six films and a television series – Skynet is an all-powerful military AI that gains sentience.

Perceiving humanity as a threat, he attacks first with his global nuclear arsenal and then with an army of skeletal metal robots that can look human – the titular Terminators. Humans and Terminators travel from a post-apocalyptic future into the past to gain an advantage in the coming war.

While the film and its first sequel, 1991 Terminator 2: Judgment Dayare sci-fi action masterpieces, their portrayal of AI is at odds with reality and could even damage its public perception. Series star Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed last year that Cameron had “predicted the future” as the scenario that “the machines become self-aware and take over … has become a reality.” In December 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman grumbled that at the start of the company, “every article about us was the same Terminator Photo,” but admitted that “the greatest science fiction stories I've ever read or seen were about renegade AIs.”

Although the idea of ​​a murderous AI seems unlikely at best to experts, the widespread idea of ​​murderous metal machines makes people more afraid of artificial intelligence than necessary.

The article “Review: Terminator: The Original Killer AI” first appeared on Reason.com.