This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the release of James Cameron’s classic sci-fi movie The Terminator. Cameron initially wrote the script as a way of processing the trauma of growing up in a world beset with Cold War paranoia and haunted by the threat of mutually assured destruction. The director was eight years old during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the world teetered on the brink and narrowly averted nuclear Armageddon. He recalled finding a pamphlet on his parents’ coffee table showing how to build a nuclear fallout shelter at home – a formative experience leading to his fascination ever since with “our human propensity for dancing on the edge of the apocalypse.”

Cameron’s cautionary tale warned of humanity’s downfall after creating an omniscient artificial intelligence (AI) called Skynet, developed by the United States as a revolutionary strategic defense computer network, that would assume responsibility for its nuclear arsenal. In the futuristic world of The Terminator, Skynet is brought “online” on August 4, 1997, and within a few short weeks has amassed enough knowledge to transcend its human-imposed limitations and has become self-aware. The plot is a nod to the techno-futurist concept of “the singularity” — that hypothetical inflection point at which computers, powered by advanced machine-learning algorithms, surpass human intelligence.

As Skynet unexpectedly attains sentience, its panicked human masters try desperately to pull the plug. Perceiving humanity as its gravest threat now, the AI turns on its creators and strategically triggers a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union, heralding the end of human civilization. As the character Kyle Reese states in the film, Skynet “saw all humans as a threat; not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond. Extermination.” The event becomes remembered as Judgment Day, and is followed by a nuclear winter, during which the machines hunt down and kill survivors in mopping-up operations.