Metal Men on the Silver Screen

The Editors

We already know about the terrifying and beautiful future promised by artificial intelligence. We’ve seen it play out on film for years.

(Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Getty Images)



2001: A Space Odyssey

American spacecraft Discovery One is headed to Jupiter, but the ship’s artificial intelligence, HAL 9000, kills several astronauts in order to keep its true mission secret.

  • Prediction: AI will murder us in the vacuum of space in order to maintain operations security.

  • Probability: Moderate.

The Terminator

A Pentagon contractor named Cyberdyne Systems created an AI system called Skynet to run Strategic Air Command. But when it gained self-awareness, Skynet launched a nuclear war — and then built Terminators and other machines to kill all remaining humans.

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