Cars, nukes and cellphones can help us predict the future of AI

What is the future of artificial intelligence? Movies can provide a first cut, but historical context with other tectonic inventions and events can help determine if AI will prove to be a force for good, ill or in-between.

With AI models by Anthropic and OpenAI recently escaping from control and hacking into other organizations, is this a case of “Jurassic Park,” when the Tyrannosauruses were accidentally let loose? Or is this “The Terminator,” when a Frankenstein version of the AI program Skynet ran the future world?

Three revolutionary inventions can serve as possible future guides about AI: the car, nuclear weapons — appropriate, given this month’s anniversary of atom bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki — and the cellphone.

After the turn of the 20th century, cars and internal combustion machines transformed society, spawning industries and generating jobs to support more than a billion of these machines. Steel, coal, oil, rubber and other raw materials were essential. So was the need for electric power for factories. Roads and highways were built across the globe. Hospitality industries boomed with gas stations, hotels and eateries populating the new highways. Stocks, insurance and auto loans formed and prospered.

But cars have downsides. Roadway and highway expansion required the acquisition of huge plots of real estate that raised issues regarding rights-of-way and ownership. Pollution became a critical environmental issue. And accidents and motor........

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