Machine guardians: The Terminator, AI narratives and US regulatory discourse on lethal autonomous weapons systems
| Published date | 01 March 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00108367231198155 |
| Author | Tom FA Watts,Ingvild Bode |
| Date | 01 March 2024 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/00108367231198155
Cooperation and Conflict
2024, Vol. 59(1) 107 –128
© The Author(s) 2023
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DOI: 10.1177/00108367231198155
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Machine guardians: The
Terminator, AI narratives and
US regulatory discourse on
lethal autonomous weapons
systems
Tom FA Watts and Ingvild Bode
Abstract
References to the Terminator films are central to Western imaginaries of Lethal Autonomous
Weapons Systems (LAWS). The puzzle of whether references to the Terminator franchise
have featured in the United States’ international regulatory discourse on these technologies
nevertheless remains underexplored. Bringing the growing study of AI narratives into a greater
dialogue with the International Relations literature on popular culture and world politics, this
article unpacks the repository of different stories told about intelligent machines in the first
two Terminator films. Through an interpretivist analysis of this material, we examine whether
these AI narratives have featured in the US written contributions to the international regulatory
debates on LAWS at the United Nations Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in
the period between 2014 and 2022. Our analysis highlights how hopeful stories about what
we coin ‘machine guardians’ have been mirrored in these statements: LAWS development has
been presented as a means of protecting humans from physical harm, enacting the commands of
human decision makers and using force with superhuman levels of accuracy. This suggests that,
contrary to existing interpretations, the various stories told about intelligent machines in the
Terminator franchise can be mobilised to both support and oppose the possible regulation of
these technologies.
Keywords
AI narratives, lethal autonomous weapons systems, popular culture, the Terminator
References to the Terminator franchise are an ubiquitous feature of the study and popular
imagination of Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS) defined as weapons which
“select and apply force to targets without human intervention” (ICRC, 2021).1 As former
United States Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
Christopher Ford asks:
Corresponding author:
Tom FA Watts, Department of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy, Royal Holloway, University
of London, Egham, Surrey, TW20 0EX, UK.
Email: thomas.watts@rhul.ac.uk
1198155CAC0010.1177/00108367231198155Cooperation and ConflictWatts and Bode
research-article2023
Article
108 Cooperation and Conflict 59(1)
[w]ho, at this point, doesn’t approach a discussion of lethal autonomous weapons systems
without thinking, even inadvertently, of the villainous “Skynet” . . . and the robot-assassins it
dispatches against the noble but hard-pressed remnants of humanity in Hollywood’s Terminator
franchise? (Ford, 2020: 2).
The media coverage given to LAWS regularly features images of metallic silver skulls
with piercing red eyes – an iconography partially inspired by the T-800 Terminator
played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (Carpenter, 2016: 57; Cave et al., 2018, 17; Dillon
and Craig, 2022: 1). Terminator references also appear in the informal conversations
between participants at the United Nation’s Convention on Certain Conventional
Weapons (CCW) which has been meeting since 2014 to discuss the possible global gov-
ernance of these technologies (Carpenter, 2016). As one of the most active contributors
to the CCW process (Bode et al., 2023), the US’ regulatory position on LAWS has major
repercussions. This article consequently examines how, if at all, the artificial intelligence
(AI) narratives presented in the Terminator franchise featured in US statements on LAWS
at the CCW between 2014 and 2022, and what this may mean for the international regu-
latory debates on these technologies.
Taking up the call to examine the reach and influence of the AI narratives presented
in works of popular culture (Cave and Dihal, 2019: 74), our analysis begins from the
premise that, despite its technical inaccuracies, the relationship between the Terminator
franchise and the regulatory debate on LAWS is deserving of greater scrutiny. Natale and
Ballatore (2020: 5) note that the type of technological ‘myths’ depicted in these films
‘may have deep effects, even if its tenets turn out to be grossly incorrect’. For example,
science-fiction comparisons are widely criticised for distracting public attention from the
more immediate challenges posed by technologies which operate with various degrees of
autonomy (Hermann, 2023; Johnson and Verdicchio, 2017; Weber, 2021). Stuart Russell,
a prominent AI researcher and public commentator on these technologies, has called on
journalists to ‘stop using this image [of the Terminator] for every single article about
autonomous weapons’ (CBC Radio, 2022). American policymakers have similarly criti-
cised the Terminator imaginary, arguing that it narrows the space for more nuanced
thinking about the challenges and opportunities presented by the development of these
technologies (Ford, 2020). These assessments speak to the perceived influence of the
Terminator franchise in shaping perceptions of the regulatory debates on LAWS and
highlight the need for greater research in this area.
This article connects the emerging study of AI narratives with popular culture and
world politics literature. Despite their identification as a ‘touchstone narrative’ (Cave et
al., 2020: 5) in popular understandings of LAWS, the political ramifications of the vari-
ous stories told about intelligent machines in the Terminator franchise have received
little scrutiny within International Relations (IR) scholarship.2 This is surprising given
the attention paid to other popular culture franchises featuring ‘killer robots’ such as
Battlestar Galactica (Buzan, 2010; Kiersey and Neumann, 2013) and these film’s per-
ceived influence on American politics (Broxmeyer, 2010). The AI narrative literature,
in contrast, has so far been principally focused on categorising the different types of
stories that have and have not been told about these technologies (Cave et al., 2018;
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