Summary
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Onehas done something rare for a high-budget action film, as sources reveal it might have influenced President Joe Biden.
TheMission Impossiblefilm series revolves around the talented young agent Ethan Hunt and his field team of special operatives as they undertake increasingly dangerous missions for the enigmaticclandestine agency aptly codenamed the Impossible Missions Force. The last film,Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One,was widely seen as a triumph by critics but wasn’t the most successful commercially due to being one of the most expensive films ever made and having stiff box office competition from films likeBarbie,Oppenheimer, andSound of Freedom.
WhileMission Impossible 7needed some adjustmentsafter test screenings, according to Paramount’s President Bob Bakish at least, the film was still a massive success and might have even had some major real-world impact on US policy. In a report by theAssociated Press, Deputy White House Chief of Staff Bruce Reed revealed that the film’s plot and villain, a rogue AI program known as the Entity, had impacted President Biden, who has prepared a sweeping executive order to ensure safety and security in the development of AI. “If he hadn’t already been concerned about what could go wrong with AI before that movie, he saw plenty more to worry about,” said Reed, who was in attendance when the President watched the film at Camp David.
President Biden, who has previously used anexecutive order to help bring back Net Neutrality, has reportedly been quite interested in the topic of AI for quite some time, with both his science advisory council and Cabinet holding multiple meetings on the subject recently. “He was as impressed and alarmed as anyone,” Reed said in another interview. “He saw fake AI images of himself, of his dog. He saw how it can make bad poetry. And he’s seen and heard the incredible and terrifying technology of voice cloning, which can take three seconds of your voice and turn it into an entire fake conversation.”
The threat of AI has far-reaching consequences and has drummed up fear even in the entertainment industry. Both the strike by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists cited AI concerns as part of the motivation behind the decision to strike. Creatives have long since seen the potential dangers of AI and incorporated that dread into their work, such as a2018 body horror film about the terror of AI Writingthat highlights the eerie attempts by AI to produce artistic expression.
While the threat of AI is genuine, and the Biden administration’s attempts to get ahead of the problem are admirable, it’s also worth noting that the technology still has many limitations and is nowhere close to replicating the sort of high-quality content that modern consumers expect from shows and movies, highlighted poignantly bytheSouth Parkepisode that mocks AI by using AIto construct a lifeless, unfeeling end sequence for the otherwise brilliantly done episode, contrasting immensely with the work of human creator Trey Parker. With the steps being taken, there is a good chance that by the time the technology does get better, it will be well in hand.
Mission: Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part Oneis available on digital platforms.
