October 26, 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of director James Cameron’s science fiction classic, The Terminator – a film that popularised society’s fear of machines that can’t be reasoned with, and that “absolutely will not stop … until you are dead”, as one character memorably puts it. The plot concerns a super-intelligent AI system called Skynet) which has taken over the world by initiating nuclear war. Amid the resulting devastation, human survivors stage a successful fightback under the leadership of the charismatic John Connor. In response, Skynet sends a cyborg assassin (played by Arnold…