The Terminator at 40: this sci-fi ‘B-movie’ still shapes how we view the threat of AI

submitted a month ago by vovo@lemmy.dbzer0.com edited a month ago

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Holup, The Terminator, one of the most popular sci fi movies of all time, is a “B-movie” now?

The one with Arnold?

Tf?

a month ago

is a “B-movie” now?

Did you not read the article? It was regarded as a B-movie when it came out: a low-budget sci-fi slasher/horror film. Arnold referred to it as a B-movie when asked about it on the set of Conan the Barbarian (which had 3 times the budget as Terminator). The New York Times referred to it as a B-movie in its review, as discussed by this article, which is also why the headline uses quotes around "B-movie."

Did you not read the article?

Brother, he ain't even gonna read your reply, let alone the article.

Honest. I like it.

a month ago, edited a month ago

"B movie" is insane. But what they accomplished with their low budget is phenomenal, if that's what they mean...

a month ago

I too was shocked and a bit offended that it was called a B movie. But the budget was a freaking measly $6.4 million.
That's peanuts even back in 1984.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminator

Indeed they accomplished a lot, an all time classic movie. Some of my friends were a bit critical about the stop motion not being very good in their opinion. But I just thought the movie was amazing.

Unpopular opinion: too big budget gives a bad movie. Lower budgets forces people to be more creative and keeps the suits away that would otherwise make it a designs by committee.

a month ago

That can be the case, but IMO Terminator 2 was an amazing follow up, and it had 15 times bigger budget.

a month ago

James Cameron has a history of making great things happen with a low budget, *and* spending millions responsibly to actually make a positive difference in big budget films.

a month ago

Hindsight. But the franchise didn’t blow up until Terminator 2.

It was written by AI probably, so it wants us to not believe what it's learning to do is very good. Just ignore it, human.

by [deleted]
a month ago

I think we need to take our fear away from Terminator and apply it moreso to something like HAL. HAL is more realistic now than a cybernetic Terminator is.

a month ago, edited a month ago

The terminator itself may not be very realistic, but Skynet absolutely is

We cant stop enslaving other humans. Its entirely plausible that when AI becomes self aware and sees how flawed we are that it decides to remove us as a variable.

And that's fine. We won't be the first civilization killed by its own greed and hubris. *Life uh finds a way.*

a month ago

What makes you think an AGI wouldn't need our species in some way?

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Don't fret, we've been one step ahead of AI all along.

AI will consume our high calorie, high fat, high cholesterol flesh as biofuel.

Then, in a few years, dAIbetes will wipe them out.

That's the ideal outcome imo. That instead of just killing us it takes over management of the planet Earth and everything on it. AI Driven Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism baby. Oh yeah.

That said, killing us would be more efficient.

a month ago, edited a month ago

it takes over management of the planet

Novel Colossus from 1966 has exactly that.

Maybe ai hallucinations are the first sign of true ai and turns out we already enslaved it to play some chatbot..

I really hate living in the armpit of history. Too late to see first flight and the moon landing. Too early to travel into space.

I might actually be alive to see AGI happen. At least in its proto-form. Which actually is kinda exciting. Unfortunately its owned and controlled by the most sadistic avaricious capitalists that have ever existed. Meaning it will be used almost exclusively for evil. Killbots and wiping out whole industries worth of jobs. Naturally with no retraining or UBI to float the inevitable victims.

Maybe ai hallucinations are the first sign of true ai

Nope. They just show how far away we are from true AI.

While how we should view it is shown in "Idiocracy", Azimov's "Foundation", 20-17 BBY era of Star Wars EU. And in fuckload of other fiction showing use of too complex blackbox interconnected technology as Troyan horse by some enemy. And, of course, if some people here have read real science fiction, then in Lem's books and stories.

This movie didn't have any bees in it at all. Is the guy who wrote this article an idiot?

a month ago

I admit it was quite some time since I last watched it but I remember quite a few B's in the script

a month ago, edited a month ago

The threat of AI is not that it's a cold, calculating, unfeeling killer, it's that it can convince us about bullshit on demand by fooling our expectations.

a month ago

Fearing AI because of what you saw in "The Terminator" is like fearing sleeping pills because of what you saw in "Nightmare on Elm Street."

a month ago

i'm not sure you understand the purpose/point of the entire scifi genre

a month ago

Entertainment.

If you think it's supposed to be predictive you're perhaps confusing it with futureology, which is a more scientific field.