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Picture the scenario: a host of government agents in a high-tech operating room, monitoring the status of nuclear silos nationwide. All of a sudden, lights in the room go red, missile pathways start appearing on screen, and somewhere in the room, someone makes a comment like "The system... it's launching by itself!"

Nuclear warfare between superintelligent AI and humanity is at the core of so many technological thrillers, from James Cameron's Terminator franchise to 80s cult hit WarGames to Netflix's new Katheryn Bigelow project, A House of Dynamite. But while the concept is both terrifying and seemingly becoming more possible by the day, there's something about these stories that real-world nuclear experts say are missing. Well, at least one expert does.

That expert would be Vox's Josh Keating, a senior correspondent who reports on foreign policy and world news with a focus on the future of international conflict. Recently, Keating went on the Vox podcast Today, Explained to chat with host Noel King about the trend of AIs using nukes in fiction, and what makes the stories particularly fictional. 

"Where I think [the movies] fall a little short," Keating said, "Is the fear tends to be that a super intelligent AI is going to take over our nuclear weapons and use it to wipe us out. For now, that’s a theoretical concern. What I think is the more real concern is that as AI gets into more and more parts of the command and control system, do the human beings in charge of the decisions to make nuclear weapons really understand how the AIs are working? And how is it going to affect the way they make these decisions, which could be — not exaggerating to say — some of the most important decisions ever made in human history."

In other words - what Keating fears isn't an AI that will wipe us out on purpose, but rather, AI-using humans that make poor nuclear decisions by mistake, due to their misunderstanding of the very programs they use. Granted, that doesn't make for as compelling an action movie. But think about it long enough, and what begins as a simple tale of inefficiency at high levels becomes the possibility of a Chernobyl-like disaster.

I guess that's the thing about armageddons - it's the boring ones that you have to watch out for.

A House of Dynamite is streaming now on Netflix. 

Maybe The Terminator isn't 100% on the money when it comes to AI, but it's still a damn good movie franchise. Follow its timeline with Popverse's Terminator watch order