5. Joshua in WarGames (1983)

The responsibility of having to make decisions during war that could cost countless lives—or, even worse, start a domino effect that annihilates the entire world as we know it—could easily leave even the mightiest of leaders frozen. That’s why in WarGames, the military invents WOPR, a.k.a. Joshua, an A.I. system designed to handle nuclear launch protocols with massive life-or-death consequences, so humans don’t have to do the hard work. But a moment of hesitation or second-guessing is a uniquely human weakness—one we need in order to prevent disaster. WOPR, or Joshua, speaks in an eerily calm voice about decimating millions of people in an instant. Thankfully, the system isn’t foolproof because a teenage hacker accidentally stumbles into it. After he unknowingly starts a conflict with Russia, he ultimately proves that human instinct, emotion, and moral judgment will always matter more than cold calculation.