The Terminator at 40: How this movie still shapes our view of AI

The film and its sequels have exerted an outsized influence on how the threat posed by artificial intelligence has been framed.

- Tom F. A. Watts

Oct 26, 2024, marked 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 artificial intelligence (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 Connor's importance to the war that Skynet banks on erasing him from history to preserve its existence.

Today, public interest in AI 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 outsized 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.