Terminator I and II
Set in: 1984, 1991, and circa 2030s
Approach to the future
Ratings
Interesting depictions
Other technologies / topics
Summary Table |
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| Event | Likelihood | Time frame |
| Computer war on humanity | very low | 2020+ |
| Time travel | extremely low | 2030+ |
| Sophisticated combat robots | very low? | 2030+ |
| Nanotechnological intelligences | very low | 2060+ |
Approach to the future |
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| Scenario as action vehicle | |
Ratings |
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| Futurism: 3 | |
| Entertainment: 10 | |
| Plausibility: 2 | |
Interesting depictions |
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| Nanotechnology: | |
| The advanced terminator, the T1000, is called a "mimetic polyalloy," and seems to be a kind of nanotechnology. It is composed of a self-organizing material with sophisticated embedded artificial intelligence. Its fragments have a homing capability, allowing it to reassemble. It can be disrupted but not destroyed, except by the wholesale disruption caused by melting. | |
| Given that nanotechnology is mostly still theoretical, such a self-organizing device presents immense challenges. | |
| Among these is how to embed intelligence in a liquid, though computing based on DNA or quantum mechanics might suggest a way. Computations have successfully been carried out with vats of DNA. | |
| Warfare: | |
| The depiction of a nuclear attack on a city is well done. | |
| Though the chance of war among the great powers has dropped in the last decade, the chance of a city attack has grown. There are more non-traditional terrorists, whose sole aim is destruction, and nuclear proliferation has continued. North Korea might use nuclear weapons in a last spasm of irrational destruction, and India and Pakistan could easily stumble into mutual annihilation. | |
Other technologies / topics depicted |
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| Artificial intelligence: | |
| Skynet, a computer system, decides to destroy humanity. It is never clear how sentient any of the terminators are. A sophisticated enough model of the world will allow a simulation of self-awareness and intent. The terminators have an extremely complex model of the world and human actions and psychology, but many of the elements of that model could be programmed. A robot could already be designed to wait by the road and fire only at sport utility vehicles; it would not have to know what they were or feel anything about them. | |
| The Model 101 ends up hinting at emotion. But the T1000 is entertaining partly because it is calmly, relentlessly imperturbable, whatever happens around it. | |
| People have also speculated that computer intelligence could grow astronomically, and beyond human understanding, once computers start designing computers. The terminators are the offspring of design by artificial intelligence. |
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| See: A note on artificial intelligence. | |
| The movies do provide themselves an out: the advanced computers that start the war are based on a chip from the Model 101 terminator that comes back from the future. So the future technology is based on. . . future technology. | |
| Time travel: | |
| One-way time travel has been achieved: both sides in the conflict can send people and objects back from the past, to precise moments. These movies show time as malleable: the future can affect the past—the computer war is triggered by computers based on technology from the future—but the known future can also be modified. | |
| Wholly new physics would have to be discovered to allow this. The circumstantial evidence—that no time travelers have ever been recorded—suggests time travel may never be possible. | |
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