Oct 5- Artificial Intelligence

Technology. Can't live with it, and if the last 5 years have taught me anything, we sure as hell can't live without it. If you're new to the sci-fi genre, one thing you should know is that we seem to have a fetish for killer robots and machines. From 2001 to Terminator to most recently Avengers: Age of Ultron, murder bots have always been a staple of sci-fi culture. In recent years, it's evolved to the point that we have gotten scared of technology almost. As soon as people mention the development of thinking computers, we immediately imagine scenes from Terminator or The Matrix of robots rising up and destroying or enslaving humanity.

And they all follow the same formula. Mankind invents a technology that can keep the peace or save the world. The problem is, that's all they tell it to do. All the computer learns is "Finish the mission". That's the only command they're given, they aren't given any guidelines or restrictions. Eventually (or sometimes right away), said machine will see humanity as an obstacle to completing the mission and therefore decide that we all have to go. This is what happens in all three of the movies I mentioned above.

The scary thing about Artificial Intelligence is that in every case, it's our fault. The machine didn't go haywire, it was just doing what it was programmed to do. So, in that sense, the only ones that we have to blame is ourselves. We told Skynet to destroy its enemies, so we became the enemy in its eyes. We told Ultron to create peace of our time, so he decided the only lasting peace would come at global extinction. We told HAL 9000 to finish the mission, and saw human emotion and doubt as being a hindrance to that end. I don't really know what led to the machine uprising in The Matrix, but I'm sure it's not different from the other ones.

Artificial Intelligence is the perfect mirror of humanity's ambitions and its flaws. It's not that our reach exceeds our grasp, it's that we don't think about what we are reaching for, and if it will be worth it. We have a bad habit of leaping before thinking. We want to achieve something, but we fail to consider the cost. In that way, all of these movies can be a cautionary tale of what could happen if we keep going with that mentality.

Ideal Specimen: The T-1000

An idea of someone who knows only one thing, that being to finish the mission would be the T-1000, and all of Skynet for that matter. As I mentioned before, they were told to destroy its enemies, and it saw mankind as the target. The T-1000, though simply a footsoldier, perfectly displays this. He doesn't care who or how many people he kills, or how much damage he causes, all he cares about is killing John Connor. Just look at his face in the picture above. There's no emotion, no feeling, just pure unadulterated determination. You wouldn't even know that he just came out of a flaming care wreck. He gets shot, gets run over by a car, he walks it off like nothing happened.Of course, I could also put the original Terminator played by Arnold himself on here, and yeah, he does belong, but Robert Patrick's T-1000 is far more intimidating in my eyes. For starters, he doesn't look all that intimidating, he looks like a normal guy. But his cold gaze and his scanning eyes make him hard to make eye contact with. He also is the more resourceful. Since his body is entirely liquid metal, he can form knives with his hands, he can mold his face to look like anyone, he can even change his voice to sound like other people. Not to mention he's disguised as a cop. He's about as big of a devil in disguise as you can get.