The Terminator at 40: How a Sci-Fi Classic Continues to Shape AI Discourse

The Terminator at 40: this sci-fi 'B-movie' still shapes how we view the threat of AI

Royal Holloway provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK. October 26, 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of director James Cameron's science fiction classic, The Terminator - a film that popularised society's fear of machines that can't be reasoned with, and that "absolutely will not stop ... until you are dead", as one character memorably puts it. The plot concerns a super-intelligent AI system called Skynet which has taken over the world by initiating nuclear war. Amid the resulting devastation, human survivors stage a successful fightback under the leadership of the charismatic John Connor. In response, Skynet sends a cyborg assassin (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to 1984 - before Connor's birth - to kill his future mother, Sarah. Such is John Connor's importance to the war that Skynet banks on erasing him from history to preserve its existence. Today, public interest in artificial intelligence has arguably never been greater. The companies developing AI typically promise their technologies will perform tasks faster and more accurately than people. They claim AI can spot patterns in data that are not obvious, enhancing human decision-making. There is a widespread perception that AI is poised to transform everything from warfare to the economy. Immediate risks include introducing biases into algorithms for screening job applications and the threat of generative AI displacing humans from certain types of work, such as software programming. But it is the existential danger that often dominates public discussion - and the six Terminator films have exerted an outsize influence on how these arguments are framed. Indeed, according to some, the films' portrayal of the threat posed by AI-controlled machines distracts from the substantial benefits offered by the technology. The Terminator was not the first film to tackle AI's potential dangers. There are parallels between Skynet and the HAL 9000 supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also draws from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, and Karel Čapek's 1921 play, R.U.R.. Both stories concern inventors losing control over their creations. On release, it was described in a review by the New York Times as a "B-movie with flair". In the intervening years, it has been recognised as one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time. At the box office, it made more than 12 times its modest budget of US$6.4 million (£4.9 million at today's exchange rate). What was arguably most novel about The Terminator is how it re-imagined longstanding fears of a machine uprising through the cultural prism of 1980s America. Much like the 1983 film WarGames, where a teenager nearly triggers World War 3 by hacking into a military supercomputer, Skynet highlights cold war fears of nuclear annihilation coupled with anxiety about rapid technological change. Read more: Science fiction helps us deal with science fact: a lesson from Terminator's killer robots Forty years on, Elon Musk is among the technology leaders who have helped keep a focus on the supposed existential risk of AI to humanity. The owner of X (formerly Twitter) has repeatedly referenced the Terminator franchise while expressing concerns about the hypothetical development of superintelligent AI. But such comparisons often irritate the technology's advocates. As the former UK technology minister Paul Scully said at a London conference in 2023: "If you're only talking about the end of humanity because of some rogue, Terminator-style scenario, you're going to miss out on all of the good that AI [can do]." That's not to say there aren't genuine concerns about military uses of AI - ones that may even seem to parallel the film franchise. AI-controlled weapons systems To the relief of many, US officials have said that AI will never take a decision on deploying nuclear weapons. But combining AI with autonomous weapons systems is a possibility. These weapons have existed for decades and don't necessarily require AI. Once activated, they can select and attack targets without being directly operated by a human. In 2016, US Air Force general Paul Selva coined the term "Terminator conundrum" to describe the ethical and legal challenges posed by these weapons. Stuart Russell, a leading UK computer scientist, has argued for a ban on all lethal, fully autonomous weapons, including those with AI. The main risk, he argues, is not from a sentient Skynet-style system going rogue, but how well autonomous weapons might follow our instructions, killing with superhuman accuracy. Russell envisages a scenario where tiny quadcopters equipped with AI and explosive charges could be mass-produced. These "slaughterbots" could then be deployed in swarms as "cheap, selective weapons of mass destruction". Countries including the US specify the need for human operators to "exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force" when operating autonomous weapon systems. In some instances, operators can visually verify targets before authorising strikes, and can "wave off" attacks if situations change. AI is already being used to support military targeting. According to some, it's even a responsible use of the technology, since it could reduce collateral damage. This idea evokes Schwarzenegger's role reversal as the benevolent "machine guardian" in the original film's sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. However, AI could also undermine the role human drone operators play in challenging recommendations by machines. Some researchers think that humans have a tendency to trust whatever computers say. 'Loitering munitions' Militaries engaged in conflicts are increasingly making use of small, cheap aerial drones that can detect and crash into targets. These "loitering munitions" (so named because they are designed to hover over a battlefield) feature varying degrees of autonomy. As I've argued in research co-authored with security researcher Ingvild Bode, the dynamics of the Ukraine war and other recent conflicts in which these munitions have been widely used raises concerns about the quality of control exerted by human operators. Ground-based military robots armed with weapons and designed for use on the battlefield might call to mind the relentless Terminators, and weaponised aerial drones may, in time, come to resemble the franchise's airborne "hunter-killers". But these technologies don't hate us as Skynet does, and neither are they "super-intelligent". However, it's crucially important that human operators continue to exercise agency and meaningful control over machine systems. Arguably, The Terminator's greatest legacy has been to distort how we collectively think and speak about AI. This matters now more than ever, because of how central these technologies have become to the strategic competition for global power and influence between the US, China and Russia. The entire international community, from superpowers such as China and the US to smaller countries, needs to find the political will to cooperate - and to manage the ethical and legal challenges posed by the military applications of AI during this time of geopolitical upheaval. How nations navigate these challenges will determine whether we can avoid the dystopian future so vividly imagined in The Terminator - even if we don't see time travelling cyborgs any time soon.

The Terminator at 40: This sci-fi 'B-movie' still shapes how we view the threat of AI

October 26, 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of director James Cameron's science fiction classic, The Terminator -- a film that popularized society's fear of machines that can't be reasoned with, and that "absolutely will not stop ... until you are dead," as one character memorably puts it. The plot concerns a super-intelligent AI system called Skynet which has taken over the world by initiating nuclear war. Amid the resulting devastation, human survivors stage a successful fightback under the leadership of the charismatic John Connor. In response, Skynet sends a cyborg assassin (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to 1984 -- before Connor's birth -- to kill his future mother, Sarah. Such is John Connor's importance to the war that Skynet banks on erasing him from history to preserve its existence. Today, public interest in artificial intelligence has arguably never been greater. The companies developing AI typically promise their technologies will perform tasks faster and more accurately than people. They claim AI can spot patterns in data that are not obvious, enhancing human decision-making. There is a widespread perception that AI is poised to transform everything from warfare to the economy. Immediate risks include introducing biases into algorithms for screening job applications and the threat of generative AI displacing humans from certain types of work, such as software programming. But it is the existential danger that often dominates public discussion -- and the six Terminator films have exerted an outsize influence on how these arguments are framed. Indeed, according to some, the films' portrayal of the threat posed by AI-controlled machines distracts from the substantial benefits offered by the technology. The Terminator was not the first film to tackle AI's potential dangers. There are parallels between Skynet and the HAL 9000 supercomputer in Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. It also draws from Mary Shelley's 1818 novel, Frankenstein, and Karel Čapek's 1921 play, R.U.R.. Both stories concern inventors losing control over their creations. On release, it was described in a review by the New York Times as a "B-movie with flair." In the intervening years, it has been recognized as one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time. At the box office, it made more than 12 times its modest budget of US$6.4 million (£4.9 million at today's exchange rate). What was arguably most novel about The Terminator is how it re-imagined longstanding fears of a machine uprising through the cultural prism of 1980s America. Much like the 1983 film WarGames, where a teenager nearly triggers World War III by hacking into a military supercomputer, Skynet highlights cold war fears of nuclear annihilation coupled with anxiety about rapid technological change. Forty years on, Elon Musk is among the technology leaders who have helped keep a focus on the supposed existential risk of AI to humanity. The owner of X (formerly Twitter) has repeatedly referenced the Terminator franchise while expressing concerns about the hypothetical development of superintelligent AI. But such comparisons often irritate the technology's advocates. As the former UK technology minister Paul Scully said at a London conference in 2023: "If you're only talking about the end of humanity because of some rogue, Terminator-style scenario, you're going to miss out on all of the good that AI [can do]." That's not to say there aren't genuine concerns about military uses of AI -- ones that may even seem to parallel the film franchise. These weapons have existed for decades and don't necessarily require AI. Once activated, they can select and attack targets without being directly operated by a human. In 2016, US Air Force general Paul Selva coined the term "Terminator conundrum" to describe the ethical and legal challenges posed by these weapons. Stuart Russell, a leading UK computer scientist, has argued for a ban on all lethal, fully autonomous weapons, including those with AI. The main risk, he argues, is not from a sentient Skynet-style system going rogue, but how well autonomous weapons might follow our instructions, killing with superhuman accuracy. Russell envisages a scenario where tiny quadcopters equipped with AI and explosive charges could be mass-produced. These "slaughterbots" could then be deployed in swarms as "cheap, selective weapons of mass destruction." Countries including the US specify the need for human operators to "exercise appropriate levels of human judgment over the use of force" when operating autonomous weapon systems. In some instances, operators can visually verify targets before authorizing strikes, and can "wave off" attacks if situations change. AI is already being used to support military targeting. According to some, it's even a responsible use of the technology, since it could reduce collateral damage. This idea evokes Schwarzenegger's role reversal as the benevolent "machine guardian" in the original film's sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. However, AI could also undermine the role human drone operators play in challenging recommendations by machines. Some researchers think that humans have a tendency to trust whatever computers say. 'Loitering munitions' Militaries engaged in conflicts are increasingly making use of small, cheap aerial drones that can detect and crash into targets. These "loitering munitions" (so named because they are designed to hover over a battlefield) feature varying degrees of autonomy. As I've argued in research co-authored with security researcher Ingvild Bode, the dynamics of the Ukraine war and other recent conflicts in which these munitions have been widely used raises concerns about the quality of control exerted by human operators. Ground-based military robots armed with weapons and designed for use on the battlefield might call to mind the relentless Terminators, and weaponized aerial drones may, in time, come to resemble the franchise's airborne "hunter-killers." But these technologies don't hate us as Skynet does, and neither are they "super-intelligent". However, it's crucially important that human operators continue to exercise agency and meaningful control over machine systems. Arguably, The Terminator's greatest legacy has been to distort how we collectively think and speak about AI. This matters now more than ever, because of how central these technologies have become to the strategic competition for global power and influence between the US, China and Russia. The entire international community, from superpowers such as China and the US to smaller countries, needs to find the political will to cooperate -- and to manage the ethical and legal challenges posed by the military applications of AI during this time of geopolitical upheaval. How nations navigate these challenges will determine whether we can avoid the dystopian future so vividly imagined in The Terminator -- even if we don't see time-traveling cyborgs any time soon.

40 years later, The Terminator still shapes our view of AI

The film has an outsize influence on the existential danger of AI. October 26, 2024, marks the 40th anniversary of director James Cameron's science fiction classic, The Terminator -- a film that popularized society's fear of machines that can't be reasoned with, and that "absolutely will not stop... until you are dead," as one character memorably puts it. The plot concerns a super-intelligent AI system called Skynet that has taken over the world by initiating nuclear war. Amid the resulting devastation, human survivors stage a successful fightback under the leadership of the charismatic John Connor. In response, Skynet sends a cyborg assassin (played by Arnold Schwarzenegger) back in time to 1984 -- before Connor's birth -- to kill his future mother, Sarah. Such is John Connor's importance to the war that Skynet banks on erasing him from history to preserve its existence. Today, public interest in artificial intelligence has arguably never been greater. The companies developing AI typically promise their technologies will perform tasks faster and more accurately than people. They claim AI can spot patterns in data that are not obvious, enhancing human decision-making. There is a widespread perception that AI is poised to transform everything from warfare to the economy. Immediate risks include introducing biases into algorithms for screening job applications and the threat of generative AI displacing humans from certain types of work, such as software programming. But it is the existential danger that often dominates public discussion -- and the six Terminator films have exerted an outsize influence on how these arguments are framed. Indeed, according to some, the films' portrayal of the threat posed by AI-controlled machines distracts from the substantial benefits offered by the technology. On release, it was described in a review by The New York Times as a "B-movie with flair." In the intervening years, it has been recognized as one of the greatest science fiction movies of all time. At the box office, it made more than 12 times its modest budget of $6.4 million (4.9 million pounds at today's exchange rate).

The Terminator at 40: did James Cameron see into the future?

The 1984 sci-fi thriller offers a grim view of the dangers that 'the machines' might pose for humanity as well as one of the most thrilling experiences of the decade For many of the great speculative science fiction classics, the future has not come to pass. The island of Manhattan was not converted into a maximum security prison by 1997. No manned space odysseys before or after 2001 have reached Jupiter. 2010 was not the year we made contact. The flying cars and bioengineered replicants of the dystopian Los Angeles of Blade Runner were not in place by 2019, and the hoverboards of 2024 do not actually hover, unlike the wheel-free skateboards of 2015 in Back to the Future Part II. But what about the future of James Cameron's The Terminator? No need to worry about "the machines" rising from the ashes of a nuclear fire or a decades-long war to exterminate mankind. We still have five years until Los Angeles 2029 AD is a post-apocalypse lorded over by AI and there's certainly not a zero per cent chance that robot tanks will crush a grim landscape of human skulls while a pocket of survivors scurry from the laser fire of drones from above. The technology that helps plagiarize grad-school dissertations today could be the same technology that annihilates mankind tomorrow. The point is, James Cameron has the singular ability to see the future, at least as far as the movies are concerned. His reported fiascos, like Titanic and Avatar, have been some of the biggest hits in film history, his effects work has set new standards and trends in CGI and 3D, and his understanding of "strong" women, however narrow at times, has been imitated by blockbusters typically dominated by men. Perhaps he couldn't be expected to predict what might happen to the world in four decades, but he's been persistently, uncannily ahead of everyone else in the industry. And it all started with The Terminator. Like many directors from a previous generation, Cameron had graduated from the Roger Corman school of film-making with Piranha II: The Spawning two years before, and he connected with another Corman scholar, the producer Gale Anne Hurd, to make The Terminator feel like a more proper debut feature. But one of the remarkable things about the film is that it feels one evolutionary step forward, with Cameron keeping the B-movie ethos of one of Corman's rousing, violent New World cheapies while doing the expansive world-building he became known for later. The budget was $6.5m but the film more than plausibly exists in the same universe as a sequel that cost about 15 times as much. As rough drafts go, it's freakishly polished. Though Arnold Schwarzenegger was a rising star at the time, having parlayed his fame as a champion bodybuilder into a magnetic lead performance in Conan the Barbarian, Cameron gives him the introduction of a future action icon. Deposited naked and alone after traveling back in time from 2029 AD to contemporary Los Angeles, Schwarzenegger is not yet identified as a cyborg, which would make him seem vulnerable if he did not have, well, Arnold Schwarzenegger's body. His cool self-possession makes him terrifying as a seemingly indestructible killing machine, but Schwarzenegger has the charisma to make him funny, too. When he flatly demands that a trio of giggling street punks hand over their clothes, it's laughable right up to the point where he tosses them around like ragdolls. Schwarzenegger's Terminator has been sent to 1984 LA to murder Sarah Connor and his programming isn't particularly subtle: he gets some clothes, bypasses the waiting period on semi-automatics and artillery (shout out to the Corman favorite Dick Miller as the poor gun shop owner), and simply goes through every Sarah Connor in the phone book until he kills the right one. The real Sarah (Linda Hamilton) rightly panics when the two women in front of her in the phone book are reported dead on the local news, but she's saved by a stranger named Reese (Michael Biehn), who has come from 2029 to protect her. As he explains, an AI defense network named Skynet will become self-aware and trigger a nuclear holocaust that wipes out most of humanity. The Terminator has come to make sure her future son John, who leads Reese and others in the rebellion, is never born. Cameron approaches The Terminator like an outlaw getting the gang together for a escalating series of heists: there's Schwarzenegger, Biehn and Hamilton, whose combination of steeliness and compassion would carry over to his conception of Sigourney Weaver's Ripley in Aliens. Then Bill Paxton gets a bit part as a goofy punk in a mohawk and Lance Henriksen turns up as a cop trying to sort this bizarre situation out. He has the effects wizard Stan Winston designing the cyborg's chilling endoskeleton and a score by the synth composer Brad Fiedel that makes the simple bum-bum bum-bum-bum percussive sound as effective as John Carpenter's homemade theme for Halloween. For a director who's become known for ballooning budgets, he gets the most out of every resource he has. Like the dismal WarGames the year before, The Terminator tapped into the particular worry that technology would worsen the nuclear fears that had simmered in the culture through the cold war. It seemed possible that computers would inherit the fallibility of their creators and machine-learn their way to global annihilation. Cameron would complicate that theme with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, but it brings the right amount of real-world anxiety to the modern, grimy urban western that pits flesh against metal and delivers the goods. The half-clunky, half-endearing earnestness of Cameron's later films also takes shape in The Terminator, particularly in a romance that develops between Sarah and Reese. (John Connor's true origin is a brain-melting example of the time-travel paradox.) Lines like "I came across time for you, Sarah" have a sledgehammer quality that Cameron would never shake as a writer, but his movies are suffused with feeling anyway, because he means it. Audiences in 1984 walked into a B-picture came out with much more than they expected, because Cameron makes a sci-fi shoot-'em-up seem like everything in the world is at stake. When Sarah Connor drives right into a storm, the symbolism may be obvious, but we're right there with her. That's the Cameron touch.