Dietmar Fischer

Yes, we are talking about a silent black-and-white film from 1927.

No smartphones.

No chat GPT.

No LinkedIn posts about 10 AI tools that will change your life before breakfast.

Just shadows, machines, workers, towers, and one of the most famous robots in cinema history.

And yet somehow, Metropolis still feels like it has been reading our group chats.

The film shows a huge futuristic city split into two worlds.

Above ground, the rich live in comfort, surrounded by gardens, luxury, and power.

Below ground, workers operate enormous machines that keep the city alive.

They do the hard labor, they are exhausted, and they are treated almost like parts of the machine itself.

Lovely little workplace culture then.

Very team building, if the team is being slowly crushed by industrial capitalism.

At the centre of the story is Maria, a kind and inspiring woman who gives hope to the workers.

But then a scientist creates a machine version of her, a robot double, designed to manipulate people.

The fake Maria does not simply replace a human being.

She becomes a tool of influence.

A machine wearing a human face, used by powerful people to control emotions, create chaos and bend society in a certain direction.

Now, if that does not sound relevant to AI, I don't know what does.

Because the question Metropolis asks is not simply, can we build a human-like machine?

That is the shiny question, the one that gets all the posters and dramatic lighting.