AI: Machines that make us look stupid

Robby the Robot in Forbidden Planet, 1956. Robby was handy for performing menial tasks for his master Dr Edward Morbius, but he was not the brightest bot on the block Photograph: /film still

Logistics – the science of getting the right product to the right place at the right time – is now handled entirely by computers. Cargo containers, like these at Felixstowe Container Port in Suffolk, are what has made world trade possible: logistics software beyond a single person's comprehension runs it Photograph: David Levene

The robot in Fritz Lang's film Metropolis, 1927, was a replica – in robotic form – of a human. It seems unreal, but Lang set his movie in 2026. Perhaps there's still time Photograph: Cinetext/Paramount/Allstar

In 1997, IBM's Deep Blue computer did something no other computer or human had consistently done before: it defeated the world chess champion, Garry Kasparov. But was that intelligence or "just" programming? Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features

Hal, the thinking, talking computer in Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey, shows all the capabilities of a human intelligence – including the ability to feel threatened, to protect territory, to disobey and kill. But to many people what made it most human-like was its reaction to impending "death" Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

Chinook is a draughts-playing computer program, first developed in 1989. It lost against the then world champion Marion Tinsley in 1992, but in a 1994 rematch Tinsley, 67, had to withdraw due to illness. In July 2007, the developers declared that Chinook was now so good that it could not lose a game Photograph: /web grab

The "replicants" in the film Blade Runner (including the one played by Rutger Hauer, seen here) were almost impossible to distinguish from a human unless they took the "Voight-Kampff" test of empathy, which they were supposed to lack. But like HAL, the replicants developed that most human of characteristics: they didn't want to die Photograph: Cinetext/Warner Bros/Allstar

When the robots are smarter, faster and stronger than you, what defence is left? Only your reliance on their obeying you. The movie I, Robot (based on Isaac Asimov's story collection of the same name) considers what would happen if robots failed to respect the idea that a machine should always be subservient to its creator. If the robots rebel, who or what can save us? Photograph: 20 Century Fox/Allstar

The supercomputer HECToR is the world's most powerful single machine, and will be used for all sorts of complex modelling, from climate change to financial markets. As far as we know, HECToR will only do precisely the calculations it is told to. Otherwise, it awaits instructions Photograph: Murdo MacLeod

Summer Glau as Cameron in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The "Terminator" films and TV series ask a question similar to 2001 and I, Robot: what if the machines become intelligent and take a dislike to us? In the TV series John and Sarah Connor and their protector Cameron – a machine from the future – attempt to stop the development of Skynet, an artificially intelligent computer that they know will become sentient and turn against its creators Photograph: 20th C Fox/Everett/Rex Features

For now, the biggest use of robots is in factory assembly lines. Though they don't seem dangerous, industrial robots are potentially lethal because they can't detect if a human is in the way of their work. Tangle with them at your peril Photograph: Eugene Hoshiko/AP

Potentially even more dangerous than an industrial robot is a machine created by Samsung, working with Korea university: a machine-gun-toting robotic sentry. Equipped with two cameras, one for day and one for infrared night vision, it has a sophisticated pattern-recognition system that can detect the difference between humans and trees. It also has a 5.5mm machine gun. You're advised not to wear camouflage clothing nearby Photograph: Sipa Press/Rex Features