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AI in Entertainment by Tim Davidson
goes back as far as 1872 when, inspired by the Industrial Revolution and the writings of Charles Darwin, Samuel Butler devoted part of his novel Erewhon to the possibility of machines achieving consciousness and learning to self-replicate through the process of natural selection. Thus began popular culture’s century and a half long love/hate relationship with technology and our growing dependence upon it.
The world of cinema got involved in 1927, when Fritz Lang’s controversial film Metropolis depicted a dystopia in which machines (and a seductive robot) are destructive and dehumanizing to the citizens of an underground city. In the nearly one hundred years since that movie’s release, many more storytellers in film and television have tried their hand at predicting what the future of AI has in store for mankind.
While many foresaw artificial intelligence becoming the dangerous and deadly nemesis of humans, such as HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, others imbued their androids with compassion and fondness for their flesh and blood counterparts, like Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Still others, like the makers of The Terminator and Alien franchises, played both sides, making the AI character a murderous villain in the first film and a protector and ally in the sequel.