Terminator: Genisys, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Chappie and Ex Machina: Hollywood is nothing if not entranced with the idea of artificial intelligence. In truth, great movies have always spoken to the fears plaguing our current culture. That being the case, what do all of these films about AI tell us about this current point in time? Simply put, we are terrified of what our own inventions can potentially become.;

Terminator: Genisys tempts us with the promise the previous sequels did—preventing Judgment Day. Avengers: Age of Ultron pits super heroes against a rogue AI built by one of their own. Chappie puts forth the age old debate asking us who the real monster is. Ex Machina follows suit. While the first two present the plot of AI eventually rising up to wipe out the weaker species, the latter two call into question how humane humans truly are.

After the dropping of the bombs on Japan revealed to the world the utter devastation unrestrained technology could bring about, campy sci-fi movies emerged during the Cold War to tackle this widespread technophobia. Such Cold War films as The Thing from Another World placed their hope in the possibility that the same technology that destroys can also be used to build. Still other titles, like The Day the Earth Stood Still, poignantly exhibited the unnecessary brutality humans have toward things that aren’t their kind. If you delve deep enough to the true threats of each film—self-destruction and racism—we can see our fears have not changed at all, they’ve only adapted to the available technology (the films in question are streaming on TCM and DTV).

Take Metropolis, for instance. An absolutely outstanding movie, this futuristic city’s backdrop once again pitted man against machine. First it’s the workers against the machines that run the city. Then it is the Whore of Babylon, a robot disguised as a woman, that brings about near catastrophe on the city and the two heroes caught up in the battle. The machines are very much the embodiment of sin. Only by uniting as a human race could the horrors be quelled.

The question that must be asked, then, is why are we still so afraid of technology? After all, the vast majority of us now speak to an artificial voice that reads us driving directions. Isn’t that any indication of how well we’ll get along with AI when it is finally emerged? According to the films, the truth of the matter is that we do not respect what we create. Because of this, we either dismiss it, allowing it to take over, or we fear it, working to destroy it even though it is harmless. If we take this idea deeper, our fear is simply us being afraid of being relegated to uselessness, the way the elderly in our society often are.

All the same, our love of inevitable doom is what has kept the Terminator franchise kicking for so long. Rumors even have it that Genisys is only the first of a new trilogy, going so far as to reboot the entire story told in the first film. Even bigger rumors are circulating about the supposed villain. According to the stars, it’s going to be quite the twist. As we head into 2015, munching on popcorn, we can rest easy knowing that AI dystopia is one thing, at least, that will never be obsolete.