It’s probably worth mentioning that Avengers: Age of Ultron jumps on the Lets-Be-Afraid-of-Artificial-Intelligence bandwagon. I think it’s safe to say there’s a bandwagon now.
Ultron is from the comic books, and has been reasonably prominent in the comic books for long enough that this isn’t a bandwagon. That’s like saying that R2D2 in the new Star Wars movie would be jumping on the friendly AI bandwagon.
There is repeated and explicit dialogue reference in the film to the scary and unknown nature of AI. It is put forward as something novel that shouldn’t be meddled with. This is not necessary given the setting, which could easily support sentient robots without having to draw attention to the fact that they’re a case of artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence is scary and new. Hence bandwagon jumpage.
This all goes back to the old principle of “don’t conjure up what you can’t put down”, which featured prominently in stories about magic. Whether you’re summoning demons or building an AI, the main idea is essentially the same. If you bring about a power greater than your own, you’re at its mercy.
Age of Ultron at the very least gave us the positive example of Vision.
Evil AI has been a theme in scifi at least since I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream came out in 1967 (probably earlier, that’s just the earliest example to come to mind). 2001: A Space Odyssey came out the next year. So I don’t really think it’s a bandwagon effect, just a tried and true formula.
Not that I particularly care about this, but my original point was that concern over AI is topical right now, and the film in question seemed to make small but deliberate effort to tap into that topicality, beyond simply having an AI as the villain. I wasn’t claiming that Avengers: Age of Ultron had invented an amazing new fictional concept of antagonistic intelligent machines.
For what I’ve understood of the movie!Ultron rationale, having as goal peace-keeping, he devised what he thought was a better way to do this than the Avengers itself: instead of maintaining peace by fighting the enemy of peace, do it by evolving a new kind of human being (the project that eventually phyzvangrq jvgu gur nppvqragny perngvba bs gur Ivfvba) and then killing all the older ones. Screw with the fact that there’s no continuity between the latter and the former… :/
Bit late, but: IIRC the post-credits scene implies that Ultron was somehow really under Thanos’ control, via the Infinity Stone Thanos originally gave to Loki (and/or its corruption/influence via Stark via Wanda Maximoff).
I suppose it might be giving the movie too much credit to argue that Ultron was at no point honestly explaining his plans, but instead saying whatever he expected would confuse and/or demoralize his enemies.
The question of liability is sort of alluded to in the latest movie, Civil War; though the short answer seems to be no.
In the end, the only real answer is always “it’s all made up and what you see is what you get”.
It’s probably worth mentioning that Avengers: Age of Ultron jumps on the Lets-Be-Afraid-of-Artificial-Intelligence bandwagon. I think it’s safe to say there’s a bandwagon now.
Ultron is from the comic books, and has been reasonably prominent in the comic books for long enough that this isn’t a bandwagon. That’s like saying that R2D2 in the new Star Wars movie would be jumping on the friendly AI bandwagon.
There is repeated and explicit dialogue reference in the film to the scary and unknown nature of AI. It is put forward as something novel that shouldn’t be meddled with. This is not necessary given the setting, which could easily support sentient robots without having to draw attention to the fact that they’re a case of artificial intelligence, and artificial intelligence is scary and new. Hence bandwagon jumpage.
This all goes back to the old principle of “don’t conjure up what you can’t put down”, which featured prominently in stories about magic. Whether you’re summoning demons or building an AI, the main idea is essentially the same. If you bring about a power greater than your own, you’re at its mercy.
Age of Ultron at the very least gave us the positive example of Vision.
Evil AI has been a theme in scifi at least since I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream came out in 1967 (probably earlier, that’s just the earliest example to come to mind). 2001: A Space Odyssey came out the next year. So I don’t really think it’s a bandwagon effect, just a tried and true formula.
Not that I particularly care about this, but my original point was that concern over AI is topical right now, and the film in question seemed to make small but deliberate effort to tap into that topicality, beyond simply having an AI as the villain. I wasn’t claiming that Avengers: Age of Ultron had invented an amazing new fictional concept of antagonistic intelligent machines.
The movie wasn’t very good, even by Marvel superhero movie standards. Did anyone understand Ultron’s motivation? It seems like Ultron’s logic was:
humans are going to destroy the world
????????
Therefore I will destroy the world.
Also, I was left wondering about whether Iron Man was going to be financially/criminally liable for the damages Ultron caused.
For what I’ve understood of the movie!Ultron rationale, having as goal peace-keeping, he devised what he thought was a better way to do this than the Avengers itself: instead of maintaining peace by fighting the enemy of peace, do it by evolving a new kind of human being (the project that eventually phyzvangrq jvgu gur nppvqragny perngvba bs gur Ivfvba) and then killing all the older ones.
Screw with the fact that there’s no continuity between the latter and the former… :/
Oh. Thanks. I thought he was just creating a new body for himself.
Bit late, but: IIRC the post-credits scene implies that Ultron was somehow really under Thanos’ control, via the Infinity Stone Thanos originally gave to Loki (and/or its corruption/influence via Stark via Wanda Maximoff).
I suppose it might be giving the movie too much credit to argue that Ultron was at no point honestly explaining his plans, but instead saying whatever he expected would confuse and/or demoralize his enemies.
The question of liability is sort of alluded to in the latest movie, Civil War; though the short answer seems to be no.
In the end, the only real answer is always “it’s all made up and what you see is what you get”.