Cultural Impacts

Public debates online and offline surrounding the usage of A.I have become more prone to fear. Some even have used the Terminator franchise as their main para-text, but why is Terminator chosen over the many A.I centered films that have become popular? It can all start from the very beginning of one particular sequel. On July 3rd, 1991, James Cameron released a sequel to the 1984 ‘Terminator’ film, ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ into U.S theaters. Continuing the film’s elements of time-traveling androids from a dystopian future and ideas of the difference between man and machine, Judgment Day built up a massive legacy in popular culture due to how the movie’s narrative depicted said aspects, particularly with how A.I was represented, and the external conflict of man versus machine. Even with the dual nature of the android characters in the film, viewers were particularly focused on the A.I takeover narrative, and their fears became more apparent in recent decades. As the discussion surrounding A.I spread, so too did the growing fear of A.I takeover and even fear of A.I taking away people’s jobs. It may appear that the public’s perception on A.I was negative predominantly because of T2 as well as its predecessor, as if the franchise’s legacy did nothing to quell the fears of a machine apocalypse. This chapter’s first objective is to argue that the popular sequel not only thrives from its exaggeration of A.I. but also makes it much harder for experts to give a more grounded take on the subject. This chapter’s second objective is to not only address some common A.I fear but also alleviate them from a handful of different aspects. One of the aspects will touch upon the government’s usage of A.I.

Real-World Parallels

A real-life parallel to the fictitious machines is shown through how drone warfare has been used by the Israeli government in the Gaza-Israel conflict, along with both Russia and Ukraine using drones in the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict as well. One noteworthy section from the online journal even points out the similarity here: “Israel publicly released the footage, hoping to celebrate the death of one of its key nemeses, but instead faced public ambivalence. For many, the footage drew uncomfortable parallels with Hollywood’s cinematic depictions of aerial Hunter-Killer robots seeking out and eliminating the heroic human resistance amid bombed-out ruins. “Wow! modern warfare. This is like a scene from The Terminator,” commented one user on the IDF’s official YouTube page.” alongside how governments have tried to handle these events: “Much of this AI warfare technology remains kept under wraps, only surfacing as a result of the efforts of courageous Israeli journalists and military whistleblowers or when the tech fails publicly.” Another real-life example can come from Watts and Bode: “References to the Terminator franchise are an ubiquitous feature of the study and popular imagination of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) defined as weapons which “select and apply force to targets without human intervention”; These two examples can be seen as good arguments for how an A.I takeover is closer to becoming a reality than previously believed, and there is no denying some of the possible threats in government usage of A.I. However, there are other aspects of A.I use that hasn’t been taken into as much consideration.

The official website for the U.S Government Accountability Office made a short blog about how Terminator is unlikely to happen, showing visual graphs about some of the ways business and government use A.I and how it can change specific fields in the future, and one quote stating an example here: “In transportation, automated cars and trucks could improve highway safety, reduce delivery costs, and increase our mobility.” The blog also briefly touches upon biases that AI data collects, concerning the US Government Accountability Office’s concerns about AI’s use in criminal convictions. Specifically, “harsher criminal sentences may be recommended for certain racial groups” as a result of pre-existing biases against marginalized identities. Due to the “black box” nature of AI algorithms, users cannot determine how AI programs are trained to come to their predetermined conclusions. “Another risk is that biases in the data could lead to biased outcomes. For example, AI is under development to assist in criminal sentencing, and it’s possible the resulting recommendations might be harsher for certain racial groups.” Even if an official government website has this much analytical research to debunk A.I fears, the public could remain skeptical thanks to the legacy of the Terminator franchise and similar robot films and the real-life parallels that emulate them. So, could there be another factor that plays into how these sci-fi films have the public petrified about A.I.’s advancements, present and future? Yes, and it doesn’t just stem from misuse of technology or harmful data collection, but something a little easier to notice. As people see its real-world applications, A.I in film plays a massive role in enhancing public fear to draw away from present dangers that are shown in A.I.

Media Literacy

With how Judgment Day presented the two android characters, T-800 (portrayed by Arnold Schwarzenegger) and T-1000 (portrayed by Robert Patrick), viewers can see how the androids, while both made with Skynet, have conflicting objectives: protecting young John Connor and killing him, respectively, solidifying the dual nature of A.I easily. The film even utilizes the subplot of the T-800 learning how not to kill but also learning human emotion to a significant degree. Some can see this as an allegory for how machines can be used for beneficial purposes or how machines are capable of good as much as it is capable of bad, but most viewers have remembered most of the themes of the apocalypse and dangerous machines, thanks to the exaggeration. Scholars and technologists have pushed back against exaggerated portrayals, who have been using data and opinions of members of the public to try and debunk some of the media’s exaggeration of A.I fear mongering. In one such case, the California Institute of Technology hosted an event called ‘Sci-Fi to Sci-Fact: Artificial Intelligence on the Big Screen’, where some faculty members, along with Radiolab’s Latif Nasser, would lead a discussion into how A.I is used today, and were keen on using popular sci-fi movies as examples. The faculty members would go on to elaborate on how certain films like the Terminator franchise was ‘sensationalist’, going on to say this: “A lot of the details by which they say AI might kill us are just completely ludicrous,” said Yisong Yue, professor of computing and mathematical sciences. “To the extent that [AI] can have potential to cause a lot of harm, the manner by which it could cause that harm will not be anything like what’s in these movies.” Similarly, individuals may perceive AI’s influence as solely negative due to media exposure and fail to see the positives AI can provide individuals with regards to automation of routine and mundane tasks to maximize efficiency in the workplace, as said by Caltech experts here, “Despite the real-life threats of artificial intelligence, the panelists agreed that the virtues of AI deserved more screentime.” While the panelists did understand the many concerns regarding the harmfulness of A.I, they still wanted to address the media hyperbole, along with how it seemed to mask the more prevalent worries of A.I with things such as Instagram filters. But what about other people’s perception of A.I.?

Thankfully, London business management consultancy group PublicFirst conducted research by having people in the U.S and the U.K use a public survey so that they can gain better insight into what people thought about specific A.I topics and even included bar graphs further detailing the results of said survey. They even specified in their opening statement this particular paragraph: “This poll shows Americans have a multitude of views about AI. They are curious, interested, worried, and amazed. They think the technology will help advance science, make jobs less mundane, and improve health care, but they also worry that it could help create misinformation, enable hacking, and cause job losses. Overall, they are divided between AI optimists who believe the technology will make things better, and AI pessimists who think it will make things worse. And many have not yet made up their mind.” In the section of ‘How are Americans using AI today?’, PublicFirst states: “In our polling, the highest awareness was for existing AI tools that have been around for a long time: Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri.”, along with this: “In our polling, we saw some evidence that people are continuing to discover these tools though, suggesting that usage may continue to grow reasonably fast. On average, over 40% of users of the tools said they had only started using them in the last 3 months.” Another section of the online survey, ‘Health’, would go on about the opinions of A.I regarding health conditions and ways of diagnosing them, as stated here: “For example, 70% of Americans say they would support AI diagnosis if it was double checked by a human doctor, and just giving people the choice whether they used it or not increased support to 61%. The only situation here where we saw strong opposition was in a scenario where patients would be outright forced to use the system, two-thirds of Americans opposed to this.” By touching upon several topics regarding A.I usage, PublicFirst managed to get a lot of varying opinions, detailing both concerns and the opportunities that can arise from modern A.I use. They even gave a section regarding how people felt about A.I concerning the 2024 presidential election to have a better understanding of both parties’ different ideals, rather than simply focusing on one specific side. Overall, the examples given in this chapter serve not to try and make viewers feel as if their fears are belittled, but instead to help alleviate them and give a more grounded perspective on the recent A.I. debate, and to show how the legacy of sci-fi media like Judgment Day has only exaggerated the potential of it.

Sources

Awan, A. N. (2024). The Terminator’s Vision of AI Warfare Is Now Reality. Jacobin. https://jacobin.com/2024/12/terminator-ai-war-palestine-ukraine

Dupont, J., Ali, V., Baron, D., Price, A., & Wride, S. (2024). What does the public think about AI? US, 2024. https://www2.datainnovation.org/2024-state-of-ai-us.pdf

Ronald and Maxine Linde Center for Global Environmental Science. From Sci-Fi to Sci-Fact: Caltech Experts Debunk AI Movie Myths. (2023). https://lindecenter.caltech.edu/news/sci-fi-to-sci-fact-event

Office, U. S. G. A. (2019, August 29). Artificial Intelligence: Still a Long Way from Judgment Day | U.S. GAO. Www.gao.gov. https://www.gao.gov/blog/2019/08/29/artificial-intelligence-still-a-long-way-from-judgment-day

Watts, T. F., & Bode, I. (2023). Machine guardians: The Terminator, AI narratives and US regulatory discourse on lethal autonomous weapons systems. Cooperation and Conflict, 59(1), 107-128. https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367231198155  (Original work published 2024)