Review: The Terminator: The Original Killer AI

Arnold Schwarzenegger's classic role colored our perception of AI, for better or for worse.

For the pop culture–savvy, artificial intelligence has long been synonymous with Skynet, the autonomous machine network introduced in James Cameron's 1984 film The Terminator.

(Joanna Andreasson/DALL-E4)

Skynet embodies the dreaded Singularity, the theoretical point where technology advances so far that it moves beyond our control. In the franchise's ever-expanding lore—stretched across six films and a TV show, so far—Skynet is an all-powerful military AI that achieves sentience.

Perceiving humanity as a threat, it attacks, first with the global nuclear arsenal and then with an army of skeletal metal robots that can appear human—the titular Terminators. Humans and Terminators travel back in time from a post-apocalyptic future to gain an advantage in the coming war.

While the film and its first sequel, 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, are sci-fi action masterpieces, their depiction of AI is at odds with reality and may even harm its popular perception. Series star Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed last year that Cameron "predicted the future," as the scenario of "the machines becoming self-aware and they take over…has become a reality." In December 2023, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman grumbled that when the company started, "every article about us used the same Terminator photo," though he conceded that "the greatest sci-fi stories that I ever read or watched…were the AIs going rogue."

Although experts find the prospect of homicidal AI remote at best, the popular perception of murderous metal machines makes people more freaked out about artificial intelligence than they should be.

Comments

[Chumby]

Artificial Insemination (AI) will be dominated by The Sperminator.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

Cum cum now.

[tracerv]

Wonder if history would have been different if OJ would have been the star?

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/james-cameron-rejected-oj-simpson-terminator-casting-1235483652/

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The OJ jokes were pretty damned good as it is. They'd have been a whole heck of a lot better.

[Medulla Oblongata]

There was The Forbin Project (Collosus) in like 1970. And WarGames preceded Terminator by a year, too.

Hooking AI into the military network? What could possibly go wrong?

[tracerv]

Wonder if WarGames holds up? Have not seen it since I was a teenager in the 80's. Had a crush on Ally Sheedy.

[mad.casual]

Wonder if WarGames holds up?

Better than other movies like Hackers or Swordfish (Though, with respect to Jolie, Sheedy, and Berry ymmv) .

[Chumby]

Look up Stanislav Petrov and the false launch by the US on the Soviet Union.

I vaguely recall a false Soviet launch was detected by the US some time in the 1970s. Staff had inadvertently left a training tape in the system.

[Incunabulum]

L

[Deep Lurker]

2001 - A Space Odyssey in 1968.

In written science fiction, it goes back at least to Frankenstein, and became such a cliche that Isaac Asimov came up with his Three Laws of Robotics as a deliberate counter.

[Its_Not_Inevitable]

R. Daneel Olivaw was his version of a benevolent AI and Galactic Central Planner.

[mad.casual]

The idea of the Robot/unthinking automaton uprising exterminating humanity is pretty solidly pegged to Capek's introduction of the term "Robot" in R.U.R./Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti/Rossum's Universal Robots... when the robots rise up and exterminate humanity.

Not to discount Shelley too much, but the monster was sentient/sapient/human and nominally equally classed, or not explicitly a mindless slave. And it didn't exterminate the human race or even the Dr.

[ravenshrike]

Except the "robots" in RUR were just enslaved test tube humanoids. Artificially created, but entirely organic and effectively human in their thought process.

[ravenshrike]

Harlan Ellison's I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream 1967.

[See.More]

@ Joe Lancaster... eh. never mind.

[IceTrey]

After watching videos of the Ukraine war Skynet's strategy seems a bit dated. A palm sized drone with a grenade on it is now the scariest weapon of war.

[Incunabulum]

If Skynet were serious the Terminators would be designed to be hot chicks who do anything, anytime. 99 percent of men would fuck themselves into extinction in the first year.

[gaoxiaen]

Who would want to deal with an Amber Heard with the strength of twenty gorillas?

[MWAocdoc]

Sorry, but the spookiest story about AI gone rogue and hostile to humanity is "Press Enter" by John Varley, first published in May 1984 in "Isaac Azimov's Science Fiction Magazine."

[Incunabulum]

JFC kid.

Lancaster, the 'dangers' of AI go back to RUR. They go back to Frankenstein.

It's not a new theme - mankind playing god, creating life, and that life turning against man.

Terminator didn't color anything, it was colored by all the previous work.

[MrMxyzptlk]

The Terminator movies got to a far wider audience than any of the novels mentioned. There are Aboriginies in Australia who have never seen a TV or a Movie Theater who know lines from the Terminator movies. I read 2001. I watched The Terminator. I recall one line from 2001 and its the bit about opening the pod bay doors, which might not even be in the book. The Terminator movies are far more memorable. There's a guy here who goes by "But Skynet is a private company" which it isn't, but still.

[Incunabulum]

No, Terminator did not.

In any case, its not the 'aborigines that have never seen a tv or movie' (racist much?) that are talking about AI dangers.

[MrMxyzptlk]

So are you being intentionally obtuse or are you really so stupid as to not get the meaning of the "aborigines in Australia" line?

Some things transcend the actual media. People who never watched a single wpusode of Star Trek still know the line that was never said, "Beam me up Scotty." People who have never read a Spiderman comic book, watched an animated series or saw any of the movies still know the, "With great power comes great responsibility" line. People who have never seen Star Wars movies recognize the heavy breathing Darth Vader noise.

The Terminator movies are like that. Say SkyNet and people who didn't see the movies know the cultural reference. Say, "Hal, open the pod bay doors" and people who never read the book or saw the movie know the reference.

But ask 100 people who Frankenstein was and 99 of them will say he was the monster.

Cultural relevance is the important point.

[gaoxiaen]

Trudat.

[Incunabulum]

> I recall one line from 2001 and its the bit about opening the pod bay doors, which might not even be in the book.

This tells me a lot about your media literacy.

In any case - what you're talking about is irrelevant. Terminator is *far from the first or even the seminal work on the dangers of mankind's creations turning on man.* Its a fairly common theme in literature through literal centuries. Its not even the seminal work about *AI* specifically - that's something that was explored *decades* before Terminator.

Terminator was influenced by the prior work in 'machine rebellion', not the starting point of discourse.

[MrMxyzptlk]

Ask 100 people about Shelly's Frankenstein. See how many even know that Fankenstrin was the name of the doctor and not the monster. See how many can quote a single line from the book.

Then ask those same people about the Terminator movies. They will know a lot more about the Terminator than Frankenstein's Monster from the book.

What came first is irrelevant. What people remember is relevant.

[gaoxiaen]

Doctor Frankenstein is the REAL monster in the story.

[MrMxyzptlk]

To be honest I've never read the original Frankenstein. But I have watched Young Frankenstein many times.

[Incunabulum]

Also, you don't know what 'singularity' means on this context.

The 'technological singularity' is when tech has advanced so far that it is impossible for us to predict what the future will be like beyond that point.

Humanity has had multiple techno-songularities - fire, agriculture, writing, printing press, cellular phones, internet, to name a few. All were breakpoints where 'everything changed, forever'.

[Incunabulum]

Sam Altman has never read Iain M Banks, I see.

[MrMxyzptlk]

I think my favorite is Ultron in the Avengers movie. He spent 30 seconds on the internet and decided humanity needed to die. If any of those 30 seconds were on Facebook I could understand his point of view and likely agree with him.

[Kungpowderfinger]

Although experts find the prospect of…

Did I just read that on a Libertarian site?

[Michael Ejercito]

The Terminator was an Earth-bound Battlestar Galactica

[Wizzle Bizzle]

"Although experts find the prospect of homicidal AI remote at best..."

Oh, well nevermind then. Now I feel silly for worrying.

[MrMxyzptlk]

As long as the AI is kept off social media everything will be fine. Give it 30 seconds on Facebook and we're all fucked.