Nearly a century has passed since the release of “Metropolis,” the first movie depicting the relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, and people's imagination about artificial intelligence continues. The film industry has told many stories about artificial intelligence.
Machines with human-like qualities ranging from beneficial to destructive, small to gigantic, good or evil. The image of artificial intelligence on the screen shows human beings’ understanding, understanding and imagination of AI, which is different from other human creations.
Advertisement
In free literary creation, people think about: When such a “human-like but not human” existence enters the world of human life, how will “our” position in the world change?
When we use artificial intelligence as a mirror for humans to think about themselves, the story of artificial intelligence is still a continuation of the human story. Today, we have compiled eleven iconic science fiction movies in the history of artificial intelligence movies. While revisiting these stories, we can reflect on our current relationship with artificial intelligence.
Classic movie inventory
1927: Metropolis (German: Metropolis)
“Metropolis” is an expressionist science fiction silent film directed by the famous German film director Fritz Lang. It is based on the science fiction novel “Metropolis” of the same name written by Thea Gabriele von Harbou. Adapted, it is also one of the most important works in the history of cinema.
Advertisement
This movie presents a futuristic world full of gloom. The story tells the story of the mad scientist Rotwang who created the bionic robot HEL to incite workers to riot and destroy the entire metropolis.
The movie contains a series of visually stunning scenes, such as towering city skyscrapers, huge mechanical equipment, cutting-edge transportation and nearly real-life robots.
“Metropolis” marks the birth of the first feature-length science fiction film and can be said to be the originator of the science fiction film genre. It had a profound influence on later classics such as “Blade Runner” and “The Matrix.”
The Japanese animated film “Metropolis” released in 2001 was also inspired by this film.
On September 4 of the same year, the film was listed as a World Documentary Heritage by UNESCO.
In 2010, a nearly original restoration of Metropolis was released, but sadly, the complete original version of the film remains lost to this day.
1968: 2001 A Space Odyssey
“2001: A Space Odyssey” is an American science fiction film directed by Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's short story “The Outpost,” and collaborated with Clarke on the script. Shortly after the film's release, Clark published a novel of the same name.
Although the film received mixed reviews when it was released, the film still achieved the highest box office in North America in 1968 and was nominated for 4 Academy Awards that year, winning the Best Visual Effects Award. In 1991, the film was collected by the National Film Preservation Service for its “cultural, historical, and aesthetic importance.”
British writer Douglas Adams once pointed out that a striking feature of Stanley Kubrick's vision of the future was the lack of a keyboard.
Among the film's many unique features, the most notable is the HAL-9000 supercomputer, which was a key factor in the huge impact of this science fiction classic.
HAL is a core part of the expedition mission to Jupiter. Its main mission is to assist the space expedition team in studying a mysterious black obelisk.
But as the plot unfolds, HAL puts the goal of completing the mission above human life.
The story of HAL and the protagonist Dave Bowman can be seen as a typical example of artificial intelligence causing harm to humans due to improper goal setting.
Science fiction novelist Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the screenplay, later published three sequel novels. One of them, “2010: The Year We Make Contact,” was adapted into a film in 1984.
1970: Colossus: The Forbin Project
The sci-fi thriller stars Colossus, a supercomputer designed to manage America's nuclear weapons system.
However, this AI system became increasingly independent and interacted with the Soviet Union's Guardian, who was also in charge of nuclear weapons systems.
Later, the two supercomputers merged to form a superintelligence that controls the world. They threaten nuclear war to force humans to accept their rule.
Colossus was one of the first films to explore the existential threat posed by AI. It has sparked discussions about whether machines will always behave as programmed, and what happens when AI develops uncontrollable life characteristics.
The film presents a dystopian world controlled by an all-powerful computer and humans lose their free will. This setting has a profound impact on many subsequent works, such as “Terminator” and “The Matrix”.
The most appreciated aspect of the film is its realistic portrayal of the super-AI Colossus, an agent that is threatening but also all the more charming for that very reason.
1982: Blade Runner
Ridley Scott's science fiction classic is adapted from Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?)》.
The 1982 film was not initially well-received, but over the ensuing years it became a revered classic among science fiction fans.
The movie tells the story of an agent known as the “Blade Runner” who hunts down artificial “replicants” that look the same as humans but are artificially created.
The protagonist, Blade Runner Rick Deckard, is assigned to hunt down and eliminate some androids who have exceeded their preset four-year lifespan and were former warriors.
Not only are these androids indistinguishable from humans, they are also extremely powerful and highly intelligent. The original film and its sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017) delves into the essential differences between artificial and biological life.
But in tests used to identify androids, the boundaries between androids and humans have gradually become blurred.
Visually, the first film created an image of a dystopian future city full of neon lights and never-ending rain. At the same time, this image also became the starting point of the classic visual “cyberpunk”.
1984: The Terminator
In the action movie “Terminator” directed by James Cameron, the artificial intelligence Skynet sends the robot T-800 back to the past, in order to be before the future human resistance leader John Connor is born. Kill his mother.
The series that spawned from the runaway success of the original film continues to cement the image of humanoid killer robots and evil super AIs with ambitions to exterminate the human race.
“Terminator 2: Judgment Day” released in 1991 revealed the human side of the reprogrammed T-800, the inhuman side of the young mother Sarah Connor (Sarah Connor), and the engineer Miles Dyson (Miles Dyson). Dyson's paranoid side.
He inadvertently paved the way for the creation of Skynet with his supposedly harmless invention of the “Neural Network Processor”.
The idea that humans might inadvertently create lethal AI is common among those concerned about the development of AI, and this concern may well be correct.
1999: The Matrix
In the sci-fi classic “The Matrix,” hacker-insurgent-turned-office worker Thomas Anderson discovers the truth about his world: It's all just a computer simulation, and he and other humans In the same way, it has unknowingly become the “battery” that provides energy for the artificial intelligence that took control of the world a long time ago.
In this virtual world, AIs led by “Agent Smith” are constantly trying to stop the rebels.
Throughout the series, Smith is portrayed as a self-aware program pursuing its own goals, but this AI works against the interests of its creator.
This sounds mysterious, doesn't it? But this is not a fantasy: an important area of AI research is developing the ability to create new and better AI, which is already a reality.
In 1999, “The Matrix” interpreted the classic theme of “artificial intelligence destroys humanity” with a new narrative technique, and adapted the philosophical thought experiment of French philosopher René Descartes.
In his 1641 work Meditations on First Philosophy, Descartes imagined a demon who deceived people into believing a false reality.
The “Matrix” series has now developed to four works. The latest “The Matrix: Resurrection” was released in 2021, but the reviews it received were generally not as good as its predecessors.
2004: I, Robot
Detective Del Spooner tracks a humanoid robot in 2035 Chicago in this sci-fi action film inspired by Isaac Asimov.
He suspects that the robot named Sonny murdered its inventor, Dr. Lanning. However, Spooner gradually reveals a larger conspiracy: an advanced AI named VIKI has secretly taken control of the situation and directed the robots to revolt against humans.
“I, Robot” reinterprets Asimov's three laws of robots and depicts a future where humans are oppressed by AI created by themselves.
The film raises profound ethical questions: In order to protect humans, should AI gain the power to dominate humans?
2008: WALL-E
“Wall-E” is an American science fiction animated film produced by Pixar and distributed by Walt Disney.
The movie centers on a lonely garbage-collecting robot named Wall-E, abandoned on a desolate Earth in the year 2805. Wall-E met an exploration robot named Eva, fell in love with her at first sight, and then followed her on an adventure across the galaxy.
Using minimal dialogue in its initial scenes, the film is thought-provoking and explores themes such as consumerism, human impact on the environment, and the risk of global catastrophe.
The production budget of “Wall-E” reached $180 million, setting a record for an animated film at the time. Not only was it a commercial success, it also grossed over $500 million at the global box office. The work also won multiple awards including a Golden Globe and an Oscar for Best Animated Feature.
2013: Her
In the romantic science fiction drama “Her”, the protagonist Theodore Twombly begins to try out a new AI assistant named Samantha.
The beautiful artificial intelligence voice from the speakers deepens the relationship between Theodore and Samantha, and eventually the friendship between the two turns into love.
Rather than relying on stunning special effects, the film focuses on both the positive and negative aspects of a romantic human-machine relationship.
“Her” explores how a disembodied AI expresses love, and how humans face and accept the challenges of this unconventional love relationship.
2015: Ex Machina
In the film directed by Alex Garland, the robot Ava is the focus of the story.
She is the work of Nathan, an eccentric tech entrepreneur who brings Ava to his employee Caleb.
Caleb is given a task: to determine whether Ava is self-aware. The film vividly depicts the relationship between Ava and Caleb that develops over a series of in-depth conversations.
Ex Machina deftly tackles recurring themes in artificial intelligence narratives, such as consciousness, manipulation, betrayal, and the struggle for power.
Garland cleverly sets the story in a remote research laboratory, allowing the film to focus on a few key questions: What is consciousness? Can machines have consciousness? How do we test consciousness? What happens when consciousness is tested?
Garland presents the film adaptation of the Turing Test in an engaging way that adds an exciting plot twist.
2023: The Creator
“The Creator” is an epic science fiction action thriller set in the near future that explores the complex relationship between humans and artificial intelligence.
In this apocalyptic vision of the future, an AI causes a nuclear explosion in Los Angeles, triggering a global war against AI.
The movie focuses on former agent Joshua Taylor (Joshua Taylor), who is sent on a mission to destroy a mysterious weapon.
The movie digs deep into the moral gray area and makes people think deeply: who is the real “bad guy”? Is it an AI acting out of self-defense instincts, or humans who create and abuse it?
Unlike many other science fiction films, “The Creator” is not an adaptation of any literary work, but an original story.
Director Gareth Edwards (known for “Rogue One” and “Godzilla”) teamed up with musical master Hans Zimmer to create this visually stunning story.
More science fiction works about artificial intelligence
1973: World on a Wire. In this movie, a research institute creates a simulated town with 9,000 AI residents. These AIs have similar thinking and emotional abilities to humans, but they do not know that they are actually living in a virtual world.
1973: Westworld. In this film, a rebellious robot takes center stage in a Wild West-style amusement park that inspired the series of the same name.
1977: Star Wars. R2D2's imagery vividly illustrates how humans can become emotionally attached to a moving metal box.
1983: Wargames. A seemingly harmless game turns into nuclear war. The film explores the consequences that can occur when an AI system cannot distinguish between games and reality.
1995: Ghost in the Shell. In the film, the “Puppet Master” manipulates Cyborg's body in unique ways, sparking discussion about whether he is a ghost or an artificial intelligence. Whatever the answer, it is mechanical in nature.
2001: Artificial Intelligence (AI. Artificial Intelligence). The film is set in a future society where artificial intelligence for emotional communication is developed to replace children who have died of illness. Although artificial intelligence is endowed with the ability to love, the difference between humans and artificial intelligence still makes both parties feel painful.
2019: I Am Mother. In this movie, an AI system transforms into a caring robot mother, trying to raise better humans. This setting triggers thinking about the problems that may arise when AI plays an important role.
References:
https://the-decoder.com/artificial-intelligence-movies-milestones-in-ai-film-history/