Hollywood’s Incompetence at Fathoming America’s AI Future
Hollywood’s Incompetence at Fathoming America’s AI Future
From 2001: A Space Odyssey to The Jetsons, Hollywood has long misread America’s tech future. The real AI story will be written by innovators—not screenwriters.
Here is some good news: Hollywood and its legions of entertainment writers, actors, and directors are going to have next to nothing to do with identifying the vision, let alone core components, of America’s artificial intelligence (AI) future. The sooner we all realize this, the better.
Hollywood does have a character role to play on this topic, that of sometimes producing good or insightful entertainment. The more important actors in America’s real-life, real-high-stakes AI drama are the ethical scientists and engineers who aspire to build a better world and are doing so.
How 2001: A Space Odyssey Shaped Our View of AI
Perhaps no movie encapsulates Hollywood’s influence over popular thinking on science and technology, and even AI today, more than 2001: A Space Odyssey. Released in 1968, more than a year before the moon landing, the quasi-dystopian film sees space travel being far more common and sophisticated at the turn of the millennium. For the record, that vision was way off the mark in 2001 and still is.
Most, if not all, of the movie’s characters are automatons, having less personality than the supercomputer, an acronym for the Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, that is Hal. Those in authority are manipulative and dishonest about a discovery on the moon. And Hal wreaks havoc on an important mission.
Recently, I watched the movie again, in part because my father, an Ivy League-educated chemical engineer, thought it important and was captivated by it. What is striking is the complete lack of joy and enthusiasm in any of the movie’s characters, despite the marvelous technology they have and the fact that they are part of the scientific elite, the privileged class. Beyond the film’s pessimistic tone, there are also major popular misconceptions today about Hal.
Yes, he was a supercomputer who took over and committed evil acts, killing all but one member of the space crew and making it necessary to abort an expensive and path-breaking mission to Jupiter. But Hal was actually overpowered by the astronaut Dave, who disabled and eventually unplugged Hal, wiping him out.
It is also clear that the lack of human control and other backup systems made Hal’s actions possible. This is a warning that there must always be a human element in AI and related tech management. If that was the film’s primary intended lesson, mission accomplished.
Spoiler alert: Dave survived after knocking off Hal and was able to take a space lifeboat-type vehicle on a long and adventurous journey, where he is also somehow, mysteriously reborn at the end.
When Hollywood’s Predictions Went Wrong
Fortunately, the ominous predictions of 2001: A Space Odyssey were disregarded by Americans who enthusiastically unified and celebrated the moon landing on July 20, 1969, and numerous other space missions. We did not take a strategic pause on scientific discovery then because of the influential movie. Nor should Hollywood influence our scientific research and development today.
Indeed, Hollywood has been dramatically wrong with other portrayals of the future. In 1983, The Day After forecast that nuclear annihilation was our destiny while implying it could only possibly be avoided by a US nuclear weapons freeze. Five years later, after a US nuclear weapons buildup, the United States and the Soviet Union entered into a series of historic nuclear weapon reduction treaties. There was a lot of good feeling between the two countries, with President Ronald Reagan even speaking to college students in Moscow.
The Jetsons Got It Closer to Right
On the upbeat and somewhat accurate side, The Jetsons cartoon series showed a bright future with technology. The happy family was assisted by a robot named Rosey.
Robots today are becoming a US tech phenomenon. Amazon recently announced it had deployed more than one million robots. Elon Musk envisions them becoming widespread for doing common home chores one day. While far from prophetic, The Jetsons cartoon proved more accurate than serious movies about the future of technology.
Why Predicting Technology Is So Hard
To be sure, most predictions about future technology are way off the mark.
At the turn of the twentieth century, many forecast that autos would not become popular. Since then, there have been numerous predictions that America would soon run out of oil. Former President Jimmy Carter proclaimed in a 1976 debate with President Gerald Ford that scientists agreed we would have no more oil by 2011.
Even Socrates was wary of writing, the high-technology discovery of his day. He told Plato that he feared it would lead to forgetfulness.
Tech Leaders, Not Hollywood, Define the Future
Indeed, it is America’s tech business leaders who are far more accurate, interesting, and insightful about AI.
Speaking in 2018, Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said, “AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. It is more profound than, I dunno, electricity or fire.” He also spoke presciently about AI and its rapid development on 60 Minutes on April 16, 2023.
Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, in his April 2025 annual letter to shareholders, said, “Increasingly, you’ll see AI change the norms in coding, search, shopping, personal assistants, primary care, cancer and drug research, biology, robotics, space, finance services, neighborhood networks—everything.”
Now Is the Time for Optimistic Leadership
Today, it is essential for our elected and community leaders to drive positive, enthusiastic discussions on AI for unleashing prosperity, wealth creation, and human problem-solving the likes of which the world has never seen.
Now is a time for buoyant, creative, unbound optimism, which many of our young people sorely need to hear and take to heart. Today’s community leaders can and should emphasize to all that this is a time to think boldly and without limits on noble goals. Hollywood’s often morose pessimism must be set aside.
Indeed, we should urge people to write their own dramatic, impactful AI script. What do you want to do? Cure diseases? Reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Bring attention to a cause? Reach out to others with important teachings? Grow crops better? Travel in space?
Let America Write Its Own AI Story
AI makes all these goals much more attainable and possible. Yes, safeguards are necessary, just as we have guarded against atomic weapons accidents and misuse for more than 80 years.
Let Americans author the stories about AI and how it changes things for the better. That will give Hollywood plenty of material for movies and documentaries, while sparing it the embarrassment of forecasting what technology will do and where it will head.
About the Author: Paul Steidler
Paul Steidler is a Senior Fellow with the Lexington Institute, a public policy think tank based in Arlington, Virginia. He researches, studies, and discusses federal government policy on technology and logistics issues, identifying ways the federal government can work more efficiently. This includes analyzing the costs and impacts of federal government policies, as well as their interactions with the European Union and other international organizations.
Image: NorthSky Films/shutterstock
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