Summer Glau

Terminator: Salvation and the Sarah Connor Chronicles

Ethical Technology

[Contains spoilers.] Overall, although Terminator: Salvation was a well produced and enjoyable movie, it wasn’t particularly deep. I was at least hoping for a more interesting exploration of Marcus Wright’s identity and the meaning he found in his existence after discovering he was the first genuine cross between a human and a machine, but even that was handled predictably. The movie evaded any of the complexity that the recently canceled Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series had been beginning to develop.

Terminator: Salvation opens with Marcus Wright on death row in 2003, being finally convinced to donate his body to science. When he becomes aware of himself again in 2018, he doesn’t know that machines have wiped out most of the human species and taken over the world, or that he’s actually part machine. There was an intriguing quote about him from a lot of the previews where Blair Williams says “He saved my life. I saw a man, not a machine.” Unfortunately though, that issue isn’t explored much beyond that. We eventually learn that Marcus was sent by Skynet to be the perfect infiltrator and finally succeed at killing John Connor, but when Marcus learns of his true purpose and identity he rebels and works to save John Connor.

Existential risk

One of the problems with stories that deal with existential risks is that if they were realistic, and humanity as a whole was destroyed, there wouldn’t be much of a story to tell. In real life, if a runaway AI developed and cared enough about us to destroy us, we would simply be annihilated with no opportunities for heroics. Even if a human resistance did somehow manage to survive after the world’s weapons systems were turned against them, there are far more effective ways to destroy such a resistance than are used in Terminator: Salvation.

When the resistance believes that they have a signal that they can use to destroy Skynet once and for all, John Connor is reluctant to destroy the location where many human prisoners are held, including Kyle Reese who is supposed to be sent back in time to become his father. The leaders of the resistance disagree with John, however, and feel that sacrifices must be made in war. Considering the measures that humans turn to in war even when the species isn’t reduced to a handful of resistance members, it’s not hard to imagine such sacrifices being made or even justified when a nearly-extinct humanity has the opportunity to rid itself of its oppressors.

John Connor gives a speech to the resistance saying that what separates humans from the enemy is that humans are not just cold and calculating machines, and as such the prisoners should be not be sacrificed to advance the war for the greater good. John’s mother told him that the machines would use his best traits against him, but she also told him to follow his heart when he didn’t know what to do. Regardless of whether such sacrifices should be made (and in movies, the lesson always seems to be that it’s worth risking millions on the off-chance of saving a couple of lives) John’s commitment to principled action is not as idealistic as it appears. It is in fact quite pragmatic, as it would seem that the real reason for his reluctance to attack Skynet is that by doing so his father would die, not only preventing John from being born, but altering the course of events to ensure Skynet’s victory.

The movie ends with John Connor saying that what separates humans from machines isn’t something that can be programmed, but the strength of the human heart.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles

The series Terminator: SCS on the other hand had a lot more opportunity for in-depth explorations of the relationships between humans and machines, so it’s saddening to see it canceled before its time, like too many other quality science fiction shows. Some of the scenes in SCS were very well written and acted, particularly those involving Cameron, the terminator reprogrammed and sent back in time to ensure the safety of John Connor. One of the most fascinating Cameron moments came after a monologue from Sarah Connor saying:

“We all have weak moments, moments where we lose faith, but it’s our flaws, our weaknesses that make us human. Science now performs miracles like the gods of old, creating life from blood cells or bacteria, or a spark of metal. But they’re perfect creatures and in that way they couldn’t be less human. There are things machines will never do, they cannot possess faith, they cannot commune with God. They cannot appreciate beauty, they cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won’t have to destroy us, they’ll be us.”

We then see Cameron gracefully practicing ballet, apparently for no extrinsic purpose.

Cameron’s inability to believe in a supernatural God is more of a virtue than a flaw; and if, as Sarah says, we need to embrace our flaws to be human, then we need a better way to measure our progress than by assessing to what extent we are human. However, as Cameron shows, that doesn’t have to mean an inability to appreciate such things as beauty. There’s no reason to assume that the capability to produce nuanced and emotional works of art cannot be programmed, it’s just that it is more challenging to create a machine that makes the non-obvious connections that characterize human creativity than it is to create one that thinks in a purely organized, systematic manner.

By a similar token, there’s no reason to think that a heart that is stronger than a human’s cannot be either genetically or mechanically engineered. Even speaking metaphorically, while there are a great deal of challenges in designing ethical robots, there’s always a sliver of hope that humans will learn from their fears as manifested in popular media like the Terminator franchise. Instead of designing machines that kill indiscriminately, we could create ethical robotic soldiers that, unlike humans, do not act out of inappropriate fear, anger, or rage; and instead follow international law like the Geneva Conventions, and refuse to torture or carry out illegal or immoral orders. While as long they have imperfect information, decisions with unfavorable consequences will occur, it would be much easier to create a machine that made fewer mistakes than humans in war than to create one that never made mistakes, and I would prefer that to the atrocities that currently accompany warfare.

Despite the disappointing nature of the film and the sad cancellation of the series, hopefully both will stimulate thought and lead to more projects like preventingskynet.com.