Of course, “Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One” isn’t the first film to examine the perils of AI. Among the most notable is the self-aware computer gone rogue, HAL 9000, which is at the heart of director Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 classic, “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Then, beginning in 1984, writer-director James Cameron gave a chilling look at the aftermath of the rise of the AI-powered Skynet, which eradicated Earth’s human population, in his Terminator film franchise.
Nearly 40 years after the release of the first Terminator film, the dangers of AI are still being addressed in cinema, perhaps more now than ever. Following the premiere of director Christopher McQuarrie’s “Dead Reckoning” in July, filmmaker Gareth Edwards explored the fallout of a purported nuclear detonation by AI in “The Creator,” which hit theaters in September.
And while President Joe Biden has noted that the use of AI is not all bad, he said important steps must be taken to avoid its perils before things get out of hand. As such, Biden signed his “Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence” on October 30.
“Artificial Intelligence must be safe and secure,” the president wrote in his Executive Order. “Meeting this goal requires robust, reliable, repeatable, and standardized evaluations of AI systems, as well as policies, institutions, and, as appropriate, other mechanisms to test, understand, and mitigate risks from these systems before they are put to use. It also requires addressing AI systems’ most pressing security risks — including with respect to biotechnology, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure, and other national security dangers — while navigating AI’s opacity and complexity.”
