Why The Biggest Threat to AI Are Wonder Woman Men in Black

Try Googling "biggest threats to AI" and see what happens. You'll get a bunch of results about how scary AI is. But, that's not what you originally asked. I'm talking about the threats TO artificial intelligence, NOT the threats FROM artificial intelligence.

Yup, we're obsessed with all the bad things AI could possibly do to us, but we conveniently look the other way to the possibility of harming AI for a change.

Do you remember the "Wonder Woman" bank scene where Gal Gadot eliminates a terrorist threat?

You're probably rolling your eyes and asking, so what's the big deal about it? It's a great action scene. Nothing more. Well, I used to think that way, but the more I read and write about AI, the more I think about it.

The devil is in the details, especially the ones we take for granted.

We're Black Clad, Our Agenda Will Make You Sad

The leader of the terrorist group in Wonder Woman looks very familiar, doesn't it? It's no other than Roose Bolton wearing a suit instead of armor.

One more reason for the head of House Bolton to deliver a memorable line:

Down with the modern world. Back to the Dark Ages.

Wait! What? When Wonder Woman interrogates one of the Black Clad members, we get additional context:

We're a small group of reactionary terrorists who wanna turn back the clock in Europe a thousand years.

It's pretty much obvious that these guys aren't huge fans of modern technology in any shape or form. Now, throw AI into the mix of their things to do, and you'll hopefully reach the same conclusion. If Black Clad is getting us back to the good old Dark Ages, then they're certainly leaving AI behind.

You may say that I'm cherrypicking movie clips to support my anti-AI theory, but the more you think about the more similar themes you'll find.

How about one of the most recent ones? Denis Villeneuve's "Arrival" is a masterpiece both visually and conceptually. It feels so real and contemporary, doesn't it? All it takes is one reactionary soldier with fundamentalistic preferences to start a war with the intelligent life from space. I'm not going to spoil this one with further explanations, so you have to see this movie if you haven't already.

How about the classic from 1997, "Contact" with Jodie Foster? Almost an identical scenario with a terrorist act that was supposed to ruin our chances of contacting aliens. What was the justification for bombing an "invitation vehicle" that was supposed to take us to meet the super-intelligent little green men? Look I'm spending more time going through the movies than writing, so you'd have to take my word for it. If memory serves me right, it had to do something with the times when religion treated innovation and technology as our existential threat.

Aren't we doing the same thing to AI - entertaining an idea of existential threat?

The Anti-AI Movement Is No Joke

No one will ever know the violence it took to become this gentle. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

We're like a deer caught in the headlights as we're trying to catch up with the latest AI breakthroughs. Oh, look at it, isn't it wonderful? We can do this or that with the help of AI. In the meantime, for every new AI enthusiast, we get a couple more AI skeptics. I dare to speculate that this ratio isn't in AI's favor.

So, it's down with AI, back to Frank Herbert's Dune. Wait? What?

Do your homework, my dear AI enthusiasts.