How AI is Depicted in Horror Says a Lot About Us

The horror genre has always been a means of shining a light on society's fears and concerns, often using metaphor to convey its message. In the spirit of the holiday, let’s consider some of the films over the years that have used artificial intelligence to teach us lessons through the ever-so-effective format of fear.

What Can Movies and Films Teach Us About AI?

While it may seem funny to look to entertainment to better understand current events—especially media now decades old—the cinema has always been a platform for thought-provoking stories. While the quality of films will inevitably vary, there has been an assortment of movies produced over the years that address the myriad concerns we have about AI.

Let’s explore some of these concerns and see if we can find a movie for you to watch tonight. Naturally, some spoilers follow, so proceed with caution.

Horror Films Have Addressed a Variety of Topics Regarding AI

From considerations of morality to encountering the consequences of our own hubris, the philosophical questions surrounding AI are relatively easy to spot. For instance:

Would AI Subjugate and Kill Us All?

This is the classic assumption many films have made, dating back to the silent film era with Fritz Lang's Metropolis. In it, a society firmly separated by class is ruled over by killer robots. The rich live in skyscrapers while the poor toil in mines.

This fear—that AI will lead to humanity’s extinction—was also visited in 1983’s WarGames. In it, John Badlam tells the story of a high school hacker who almost starts a global nuclear war by playing a game with the War Operation Plan Response computer. The AI system that powers the WOPR—AKA “Joshua”—must somehow be convinced that such a war is not necessary and not productive, or the world will end.

Finally, there’s perhaps the most famous killer AI franchises of all: the Terminator and The Matrix series. In the former, to eliminate the man who will someday stop a cybernetic global takeover, an AI called Skynet sends a robot back in time to kill the woman who would give birth to the leader of the human revolution. In the latter, humanity has already lost the fight against AI and lives in suspended animation, their brains living in a simulated world while their bodies power the machine. While not technically horror films, these franchises give us the opportunity to explore a truly terrifying prospect… that our tools will take over.

This is far from a comprehensive list, too… we see examples of humanity being subjugated and/or killed at some scale in 2009’s Moon, the 2019 reboot of Child’s Play, and the M3GAN series, along with countless others.

Would We Abuse AI?

On the flip side, many films have made the opposite assumption, highlighting how humanity might respond to having artificial intelligence around. In many cases, the behaviors these films depict have ranged from “not great” to “utterly despicable,” often firmly crossing the latter line.

One example of this comes in the film Companion, released earlier this year. This film, set in an alternate world where advanced AI is readily available, explores what might happen if lonely people could rent and train the perfect partners, preprogrammed to attend to their every need with a saccharine smile. Via a tablet, the user can shift all the settings they like, down to their personality traits and intelligence level. After the main character, Iris, is revealed to be one of these companion bots, the audience quickly sees how her perception differs drastically from the reality that Josh—her purported boyfriend—subjects her to.

Josh actively alters Iris’ settings, not only tuning her responses to feed his ego—limiting her intelligence to 40% of its potential, for example—but also using her as an actual murder weapon by setting her up to be assaulted by his intended victim. By the film’s climax, he has actively sought to torture his AI girlfriend psychologically, in addition to hijacking an additional AI to commit and cover up further crimes.

This introduces an interesting question: how would we, as people, respond to this kind of power and influence? Films like Companion, along with many other examples—The Stepford Wives, and Ex Machina come to mind—suggest that it wouldn’t be well.

What is AI Capable Of Doing?

Many, many films have broached the topic of AI taking its future into its own digital hands, touching on the idea of the singularity. The singularity is the point at which technology’s growth accelerates beyond humanity's control, enabling it to act against human interests. From the aforementioned The Matrix and The Terminator series to I, Robot to Transcendence, this subject has certainly seen its fair share of exploration, with many different perspectives being shared.

Granted, most of these movies inject these themes into the others we’ve already discussed, the singularity serving more as a plot point to establish the setting. That in no way detracts, however, from the clear implication that AI without a source code of ethics is a danger and that blindly seeking innovation and improvement is a recipe for disaster.

Time will only tell where we bring AI… and if these films prove prophetic, where it brings us.

Happy Halloween!

Whether you check out one of the films we’ve mentioned here or decide to put on a nice comedy instead, our whole team at NetWorthy Systems hopes you enjoy the holiday. Don’t forget, if you find your business IT haunted by issues and errors, we’re always here to help.

Give us a call at (409) 861-4450 to learn more about our fully managed IT services.