Tom Cruise and Rebecca Ferguson play lead characters in the Mission Impossible film. They must elude an AI called ‘The Entity.’ (Source: IMDB.com)

Wired Says ‘Mission Impossible—Dead Reckoning, Part One’ Features Evil Sentient AI

The timing may seem prescient for the new Mission Impossible film in using AI as a nemesis to humankind, but it actually had been written several years ago. From Hal in “2001: A Space Odyssey” to the Terminator films to the 2008 film “Eagle Eye,” AI has been portrayed as the heavy in several films. The newest Tom Cruise vehicle, however, makes AI into a new big, bad enemy called “The Entity” that will likely inhabit the nightmares of technophobes everywhere.

As the wired.com story puts it:

“While the ‘man vs. machine’ trope is nothing new, the idea of a sentient AI coming to take over humanity feels especially prescient and pressing in 2023, when ChatGPT is writing term papers and companies are tasking AI-imbued bots with everything from listicles to tech support. The looming threat of AI-generated content is a big sticking point for the striking members of the Writers Guild of America too, with many wanting to ensure that any new contract they sign includes provisions for how—or whether—studios can use the technology to create scripts.”

The movie had originally been scheduled to be released in the summer of 2021, until Covid made its production its own mission impossible. Instead, its release mere months after the advent of ChatGPT makes The Entity seem that much more ominous as an idea, if not in execution. The story describes it as “swooshing graphics and eye-like optics” that are “a little hokey.”

The story notes that The Entity is the first in a series of AI bad, uh, entities to come. Two more fall films will feature evil AI:

“Both Heart of Stone and The Creator—which drop in August and September, respectively—feature AI foes hell-bent on global destruction. Humanity will no doubt prevail and endure in both those and Dead Reckoning—at their core, action movies are feel-good romps, after all—but in the meantime, millions of moviegoers can come together, bonded by their fear of what’s to come.”

read more at wired.com