Artificial Intelligence in Art

Since Isaac Asimov's I, Robot in 1950, Artificial Intelligence has been at the forefront of art and media. Artificial Intelligence is one of the major topics within the science fiction genre and is extremely influential within the genre. In 1968 both the book 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur Clarke and the movie of the same name by Stanley Kubrick were released. The main villain, in both the book and movie ,  was HAL 9000 an AI computer. HAL 9000 valued the success of his mission over the lives of the crew.

In 1978 a popular TV show named Battlestar Galactica was released. This show featured warrior robots that fought for the extinction of the human race. The original show is personally one of my favorites. In 1984, The Terminator (as pictured above), was released. This extremely influential blockbuster, depicts Earth in the future having being taken over by murderous robots that are controlled by the artificial intelligence SkyNet. In Terminator Skynet was attempting to eradicate humanity for fear of them attempting to shut it down, thus preventing it from protecting the world. Skynet is an important figure of artificial intelligence in media and is considered one of the preeminent villains in both the science fiction genre and film as a whole.

One of the main characters of the popular sci-fi show , Star Trek: The Next Generation, is a self-aware android named Data. In 2001, Steven Spielberg released AI: Artificial Intelligence, a movie based of Stanley Kubrick's idea of a robot boy. In 2005 Ray Kurzweil released a book called Singularity. Singularity is the event in which the knowledge of artificial intelligence passes that of the human brain. At this point A.I. would be capable of self-recursive improvement, able to constantly improve and redesign itself, becoming capable of creating stronger and stronger artificial intelligence. At this point, events and occurrences within the world are predicted to become unfathomable to the human mind.

Artificial Intelligence is an essential subgenre of Science fiction that constantly reinvents and pushes forward the genre in various forms of art and media.