The 1991 blockbuster sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day supplemented this story a bit. This arises from another time paradox. The original Terminator’s central processing unit and right arm survive destruction, allowing Cyberdyne scientist Miles Bennett Dyson (Joe Morton) to design Skynet. The heroes’ current mission is not only to save 10-year-old John Connor from the time-traveling T-1000, but also to destroy Skynet in its digital cradle. (This was Cameron’s last word on the matter until he produced and co-wrote 2019’s Terminator: New Fate.) Cameron recently told Empire magazine that any sequels in the pipeline are “discountable.” )
In Terminator 2, Schwarzenegger’s T-800 is not a hunter but a protector and therefore a bearer of explanation. “The system went online on August 4, 1997. Human decisions were removed from strategic defense. Skynet will start learning at some point.” August 29, 2:00 a.m. Eastern Time At 14 minutes they panicked and tried to pull the plug. ”Skynet strikes back by launching nuclear missiles at Russia, knowing that a counterattack would devastate the United States. Judgment Day, when 3 billion people will die within 24 hours.
This is fundamentally different from a lease account. In the first film, Skynet expands on its program by viewing all of humanity as a threat. Second, they are acting out of self-interest. This discrepancy won’t bother most viewers, but it does illustrate a crucial disagreement over the existential risks of AI.
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The public may imagine uncoordinated AI as rebellious and malicious. But Nick Bostrom and others argue that the real danger lies in careless programming. Remember the wizard’s broomstick from Disney’s Fantasia? It is a device that follows instructions to reach a catastrophic extreme state. The second type of AI is less human-like, lacking common sense and moral judgment. The first one is Too Humans – selfish, resentful, power-hungry. Theoretically, both have the potential for genocide.
The Terminator therefore both helps and hinders our understanding of AI, including what it means for a machine to “think” and how it can make horrible mistakes. There are also things to do. Many AI researchers are completely outraged by the Terminator obsession, saying it exaggerates the existential risks of AI at the expense of more pressing dangers such as mass unemployment, disinformation, and autonomous weapons. Masu. “First, you start worrying about things you probably don’t need to worry about,” writes Michael Woolridge. “But secondly, it distracts from the problems posed by AI. should Please worry. ”
Cameron has revealed to Empire that he is planning a new Terminator movie that scraps all of the series’ narrative baggage and maintains the core idea of ”powerless” humans versus AI. If that happens, it will be interesting to see what directors have to say about AI now that we’re talking about and worrying about it every day. Perhaps The Terminator’s most useful message to AI researchers is that of “will vs. fate,” or that human decisions determine outcomes. Nothing is inevitable.
Dorian Lynskey is the author of Everything Must Go: The Stories We Tell About the End of the World (April 2024).
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