# Works about the dangers of AI/Robots but in Human hands? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies, star-trek-paramount, ai\ **Created:** [March 28, 2025, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-about-the-dangers-of-ai-robots-but-in-human-hands/1016233 "2025-03-28T03:27:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-about-the-dangers-of-ai-robots-but-in-human-hands/1016233/1 "2025-03-28T03:27:31Z")
I was listening to a movie podcast today bring up the classical idea of the dangers of AI, mainly that it will grow sentience and oppress/kill off humanity eventually, as seen in classic Sci-Fi works like Terminator, Star Trek, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream etc… In talking about current events though they bring up they’ve never seen any sci-fi work bring what we’re “actually going through right now”, in their description basically AI that is super advanced but still “dumb” that brings down society because while it can do everything it doesn’t actually know what it’s doing, resulting in a weird AI anarchy that brings down society inadvertently. Is this accurate? Have no works really “predicted” this? ---
**Author:** ![Ponderoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponderoid/32/19221_2.png) [@Ponderoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponderoid)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-about-the-dangers-of-ai-robots-but-in-human-hands/1016233/2 "2025-03-28T04:02:24Z")
John Varley in _Steel Beach_ (1992) and Vernor Vinge in _A Deepness in the Sky_ (1999) included major collapses happening because society gets too dependent upon high tech and advanced automation they do not understand. Safeguards are inadequate, interdependent systems aren’t fault tolerant, and… boom. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-about-the-dangers-of-ai-robots-but-in-human-hands/1016233/3 "2025-03-28T06:31:49Z")
It’s the opening scenario of James Hogan’s _The Two Faces of Tomorrow._ It opens with a scene where workers on the Moon decide a ridge in the way of some contribution needs to be removed and ask the AI TITAN to send the necessary equipment. They are surprised when it returns an estimated time to complete of a few minutes…then almost killed when the ridge explodes. The AI diverted an ore shipment being sent via mass driver to Earth, and uses it to bombard the ridge to oblivion. Because nobody _told_ TITAN that terrain modification via close bombardment was unacceptable. TITAN was smart enoguh to come up with the idea on its own, but _not_ smart enough to know it was a bad one - and there’s an increasing number of similar incidents. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2025, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-about-the-dangers-of-ai-robots-but-in-human-hands/1016233/4 "2025-03-28T06:34:51Z")
> [@Ponderoid](#): > > John Varley in _Steel Beach_ (1992) and Vernor Vinge in _A Deepness in the Sky_ (1999) included major collapses happening because society gets too dependent upon high tech and advanced automation they do not understand. Safeguards are inadequate, interdependent systems aren’t fault tolerant, and… boom. Which itself is basically the same premise as The Machine Stops (1909). > **[The Machine Stops](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops)** > > "The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review (November 1909), the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928. After being voted one of the best novellas up to 1965, it was included that same year in the popular anthology Modern Short Stories. In 1973 it was also included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two. > The story, set in a world where humanity lives under... ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2025, 12:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/works-about-the-dangers-of-ai-robots-but-in-human-hands/1016233/5 "2025-04-05T12:07:35Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > In talking about current events though they bring up they’ve never seen any sci-fi work bring what we’re “actually going through right now”, in their description basically AI that is super advanced but still “dumb” that brings down society because while it can do everything it doesn’t actually know what it’s doing, resulting in a weird AI anarchy that brings down society inadvertently. > > Is this accurate? Have no works really “predicted” this? _WarGames_, pretty much.