There’s a reason Jurassic Park endures after 30 years, and no, it’s not simply because the dinosaurs look cool. Nor for the Jeff Goldblum memes and weird laughs. Steven Spielberg’s 1993 film posits a world where scientists genetically engineered extinct creatures back to life through DNA manipulation. Saying they played God feels cliche, but yeah — and thanks to those scientists, we now have a very useful lens through which we can look at scientific progress… and its drawbacks.
Like other stories by author Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park centers on humanity’s hubris running amok, and what happens when ego trumps common sense. That idea has echoed throughout our world since the movie’s inception, but never louder than during our current debates over artificial intelligence (AI). How far is too far? How do we implement guardrails? Should scientists and engineers police the technology themselves, and can we trust them? Does anyone really understand AI’s power? Do the positives outweigh the potential negatives? How does this affect human beings?
That last question carries the most weight from the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., to the sidewalks outside Los Angeles, CA production studios. And it all comes back to that same responsibility Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) talked about ad nauseam when he first touched ground on an island filled with cloned dinosaurs. He saw scientists ignoring ethical questions for the right to shout “First!” He lamented their irresponsibility and tunnel vision while engaging in a philosophical back and forth with the park’s chief geneticist, then authors the statement that looms over the entire franchise:
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
That one quote explains the movie’s continued cultural relevance. Jurassic Park is a lot of things, but it’s chiefly an allegory for a society that no longer pulls back after pushing innovation to the edge of a cliff. It replaces that caution with an unbridled enthusiasm to swan dive into the abyss just because it can. The movie predicted our current predicament with AI simply because it understood humanity’s nature better than most give it credit.
What happens when everyone shows up late to the party? Jurassic Park reflects this through Doctors Malcolm, Ellie Sattler (Laura Dern), and Alan Grant (Sam Neil). The park’s scientists worked unbothered and unnoticed behind the scenes for quite some time before anyone outside its imaginary walls noticed. Then a Velociraptor killed someone, spoiled all their fun, and the park’s investors demanded those experts give their objective blessing before the park opened.
