Christopher Nolan is legitimately worried about a Terminator 2-style nuclear disaster

Artificial Intelligence has been a major plot device for decades, probably most notably in Terminator 2: Judgement Day when Skynet becomes self-aware and instigates a nuclear war in order to wipe out the human race.

Due to the emergence of ChatGPT and the subsequent strikes from actors and writers in Hollywood partly due to concerns over the emergence of AI, the actual subject of AI is very much in the headlines at the moment.

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One of the biggest movies of the summer, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One features an AI known as 'The Entity'.

Another huge summer movie is Oppenheimer, directed by Christopher Nolan, which tells the story of the birth of the atomic bomb. While promoting his new project, Nolan discussed his very real fear that Artificial Intelligence might one day be entrusted with nuclear weapons, much like the plot of T2.

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“The rise of companies in the last 15 years bandying words like 'algorithm' — not knowing what they mean in any kind of meaningful, mathematical sense — these guys don’t know what an algorithm is,” Nolan explained at an Oppenheimer preview in New York.

“People in my business talking about it, they just don’t want to take responsibility for whatever that algorithm does.

“Applied to AI, that’s a terrifying possibility. Terrifying. Not least because AI systems will go into defensive infrastructure ultimately. They’ll be in charge of nuclear weapons. To say that that is a separate entity from the person wielding, programming, putting that AI to use, then we’re doomed. It has to be about accountability. We have to hold people accountable for what they do with the tools that they have.”

Oppenheimer stars Cillian Murphy in the title role alongside Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Gary Oldman and Jack Quaid among others.