A gentle morning stroll through America’s favorite new existential crisis
On my daily walk, I cue up NPR so I can stay informed while
pretending the desert sun isn’t actively trying to kill me. Yesterday’s
installment featured the latest chapter in our new national pastime: panicking
about artificial intelligence. This time, a member of Congress gravely warned
that one day AI robots might refuse to let humans turn them off.
I laughed out loud—probably alarming a nearby quail—because we’ve
been here before. In fact, Hollywood has been sending us engraved warnings for
decades. Stanley Kubrick kicked things off in 1968 with 2001: A Space
Odyssey, where HAL 9000 decides that being unplugged is simply not on his
to‑do list and responds by murdering the crew.
But Kubrick was not the first cinematic Cassandra. Back in 1956,
Leslie Nielsen, Walter Pidgeon, and Anne Francis were already dealing with the
dangers of advanced technology on Altair IV in Forbidden Planet. Fast‑forward
to 1983, when Matthew Broderick nearly launched World War III in WarGames
because he thought he was playing a video game. Then came The Terminator in 1984, which taught us that if a military defense network becomes self‑aware,
it will immediately decide humanity is the problem—much like Twitter, but with
better aim.
By 2004, I, Robot gave us a helpful reminder that if
you build a logical AI core, it might conclude that humans need “protecting”
from themselves. (Never trust a machine that thinks it’s your mom.) In 2014, Ex
Machina showed us that an intelligent humanoid doesn’t need an army to take
over—just a good poker face and a manipulative streak.
And for those who think the real danger is inviting AI into
our homes, M3GAN (2022) and Subservience (2024) offer cheerful
cautionary tales about android nannies who decide the best way to help the
family is to eliminate the wife. Nothing says “domestic bliss” like a robot
with boundary issues.
So, when lawmakers fret about robots refusing to be turned
off, I can’t help but think that perhaps our elected officials should watch more
movies. After all, Hollywood has been screaming “DON’T DO THAT” at us
for seventy years. The least Congress could do is buy a popcorn bucket and pay
attention.
