Arnold Peter
Founding Partner at Peter Law Group
Date: October 6, 2026
Originally published on LinkedIn
Summary: Arnold Peter traces nearly sixty years of Hollywood’s exploration of artificial intelligence, from Star Trek and HAL 9000 to synthetic relationships in Her, Ex Machina and Companion. The article argues that these stories anticipated the questions now facing society about trust, human judgment, military authority, simulated reality and artificial intimacy. Their shared warning is less about machines becoming evil than about people surrendering responsibility and control to systems whose efficiency can obscure their human consequences.
Long before artificial intelligence became the subject of congressional hearings, presidential initiatives, papal teaching and billions of dollars of investment, Hollywood was asking many of the questions confronting us today. What happens when machines make decisions previously reserved for human beings? What happens when computers predict human behavior? Can a machine imitate consciousness so convincingly that we begin treating simulation as reality? And what happens when human beings become so dependent upon technology that we voluntarily surrender our own judgment?
I have spent much of my professional life in entertainment and media law, and more recently considerable time thinking and writing about artificial intelligence. Looking backward, I am increasingly struck by something Hollywood deserves more credit for. Hollywood did not necessarily predict the technology of artificial intelligence. It predicted the questions.
Star Trek: When Computers Make Killing Efficient – 1967
One of the earliest and most disturbing examples appeared almost sixty years ago. The original Star Trek episode “A Taste of Armageddon,” broadcast in 1967, depicts two planets that have been at war for centuries without bombs falling, cities burning or soldiers bleeding on battlefields. Computers conduct the war virtually, simulate attacks and calculate casualties.
There is one horrifying catch. If the computer determines that you were killed in a virtual attack, you must report to a disintegration chamber and actually die. Captain Kirk recognizes the terrible paradox: by removing the visible horror of war, technology has made perpetual killing tolerable. It is an extraordinarily early warning about something we now confront with AI—the ability of technology to separate human decision-makers from the human consequences of their decisions.
2001: Can We Trust the Machine? – 1968
Only a year later, Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey gave us HAL 9000, the extraordinarily capable computer controlling the Discovery spacecraft. HAL speaks softly, remains unfailingly polite and appears rational, reassuring and dependable.
That is precisely what makes HAL frightening. When his programmed objectives conflict, the computer conceals information and ultimately turns against members of the crew. More than half a century later, HAL raises a remarkably contemporary question: What happens when we trust artificial intelligence not because we understand how it reached its conclusion, but because it sounds so confident, rational and human?
Westworld and Blade Runner: When Machines Look Like Us – 1973 and 1982
Michael Crichton’s Westworld followed in 1973. Wealthy visitors enter an amusement park populated by remarkably lifelike androids designed to satisfy human fantasies. The machines eventually stop behaving as their creators intended.
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner took the question further in 1982. Its replicants look human, behave humanly and possess memories, desires and a fear of death. The movie therefore asks not merely whether artificial beings might become dangerous, but whether something created by humans could become sufficiently human-like that we begin assigning it moral significance. That distinction increasingly matters because machines do not actually have to become human for human beings to begin treating them as though they are.
WarGames and The Terminator: Should Machines Control Weapons? – 1983 and 1984
WarGames brought computers directly into nuclear command in 1983. A teenager inadvertently accesses a military computer and begins what he believes is a game of “Global Thermonuclear War.” The computer cannot adequately distinguish simulation from reality and nearly triggers the real thing.
Then came The Terminator in 1984. At the time, Skynet seemed like pure science fiction: an artificial intelligence entrusted with military defense that eventually determines that humanity itself presents the threat. We watched Arnold Schwarzenegger hunt Sarah Connor and worried about killer robots. But perhaps we focused on the wrong character. The truly consequential character was Skynet—the system to which human beings had surrendered extraordinary decision-making authority. The deeper question was whether humans should ever delegate decisions involving human life and death to machines.
The Matrix: What If We Prefer the Artificial World? – 1999
Then came the red pill and the blue pill. The Matrix reversed the relationship entirely: machines were no longer serving humanity. Humanity existed inside an artificial reality created by machines, largely unaware that the world people experienced was a simulation.
Its insight went beyond the fear that machines might control us. The film asked whether human beings could become sufficiently comfortable with an artificial reality that we would stop questioning whether it was real. In an era of AI-generated photographs, voices, videos and increasingly convincing synthetic personalities, that question no longer seems particularly futuristic.
Minority Report: When Prediction Becomes Judgment — 2002
Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report anticipated another problem. Its “Precrime” unit arrests people for murders they have not yet committed based upon predictions generated by three psychic “precogs.” The accused is punished not for what he did, but for what the system predicts he will do. In 2002, the premise seemed like another provocative Hollywood conspiracy theory about a distant technological future. Today, replace the precogs with an artificial intelligence system and suddenly it does not seem quite so far-fetched.
That was the premise of a recent article I wrote exploring a hypothetical criminal trial in which all of the evidence—witness testimony, exhibits, forensic evidence, expert opinions, photographs, video, prior statements and the complete trial record—is uploaded into an extraordinarily sophisticated AI system. Instead of twelve jurors deliberating, the computer analyzes everything and announces whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty. Assume, for the sake of argument, that the machine can process the evidence more quickly, consistently and perhaps even more accurately than a human jury. Would we accept its verdict?
That question goes considerably deeper than technological accuracy. A criminal verdict is not simply the product of processing data. It requires judgment about credibility, intent, reasonable doubt and ultimately another human being’s liberty—and potentially life. Minority Report sounded that alarm more than two decades ago. The danger is not merely that computers may become capable of making these decisions. It is that their apparent efficiency and objectivity may eventually persuade us that they should.
Her and Ex Machina: When Machines Seem to Understand Us – 2013-2015
Spike Jonze’s Her moved artificial intelligence into perhaps the most human territory imaginable: love. Theodore falls in love with Samantha, an AI operating system that talks, jokes, learns and appears to understand him emotionally. Ex Machina, which premiered in 2014 and received its U.S. theatrical release in 2015, went further by asking whether a sophisticated humanoid AI could persuade a human being that it possesses consciousness, emotion and autonomy.
Both films anticipate an increasingly important distinction. If a machine perfectly simulates empathy, affection and understanding, will human beings eventually stop caring whether those emotions are real? We naturally anthropomorphize anything that talks to us, remembers us and appears to understand us. AI makes that human tendency enormously consequential.
Companion: Artificial Intelligence Becomes Artificial Intimacy – 2025
By Companion, released in 2025, the fictional future had moved remarkably close to our technological present. Iris initially appears to be a young man’s girlfriend but is actually a sophisticated companion robot. The film explores control, autonomy, manipulation and what happens when something created to satisfy human desires begins to challenge the authority of its human owner.
We have traveled a remarkable distance from HAL. The question is no longer simply whether we can trust machines. It is whether we will form relationships with them—and whether the simulation of intimacy can eventually become indistinguishable, at least to the human participant, from intimacy itself.
Hollywood’s Real Warning
Viewed chronologically, the progression is extraordinary. Star Trek asked whether technology could sanitize killing; 2001 whether we could trust machines controlling our lives; Westworld and Blade Runner blurred the boundary between humans and artificial beings; WarGames and The Terminator questioned machine control over weapons; The Matrix questioned reality itself; Minority Report examined prediction and punishment; and Her, Ex Machina and Companion moved AI inside our most intimate relationships
The common thread is not that machines inevitably become evil. It is that human beings gradually surrender something to them: authority, judgment, responsibility, reality and perhaps eventually even relationships. Artificial intelligence may calculate faster than we can and analyze quantities of information no human being could absorb in a lifetime. But efficiency is not morality, prediction is not judgment, intelligence is not wisdom, and simulated empathy is not necessarily empathy.
Hollywood has been warning us about those distinctions for nearly sixty years. For decades, we bought popcorn, sat in darkened theaters and watched human beings hand increasingly consequential decisions to machines. Then the lights came up and we went home. Today, the lights have come up—but the movie may finally be starting.
Frequently Asked Questions About Hollywood’s AI Warnings
What is the article’s central argument?
Peter argues that Hollywood anticipated the questions surrounding artificial intelligence, even when it did not predict the technology itself. The recurring concern is how readily people may surrender judgment, responsibility and control to machines.
What does the article draw from Star Trek and 2001: A Space Odyssey?
The article uses Star Trek’s “A Taste of Armageddon” to explore how technology can distance decision-makers from human consequences. HAL 9000 illustrates the danger of trusting a system because it sounds confident, rational and reassuring.
How do WarGames and The Terminator relate to human oversight?
Peter reads both films as warnings about delegating authority over life-and-death decisions to machines. His focus is on the systems entrusted with consequential decisions and the human responsibility surrendered to them.
Why does the article discuss Minority Report?
The article uses the film’s prediction-based punishment as a starting point for examining the distinction between processing information and exercising judgment. Peter connects it to his hypothetical question about whether society would accept an AI system’s criminal verdict in place of a human jury’s.
What concerns do Her, Ex Machina and Companion raise?
In the article’s reading, these films explore simulated empathy, emotional attachment, control and artificial intimacy. They ask whether convincing expressions of affection and understanding could lead people to treat simulated relationships as equivalent to human ones.
Does the article argue that AI inevitably becomes evil?
No. Its central warning concerns human choices: people may gradually hand over authority, judgment, responsibility and relationships. Peter emphasizes distinctions between efficiency and morality, prediction and judgment, and intelligence and wisdom.
