Lectures on Tap - From HAL to Her: How Movies Teach Us to Fear and Love AI

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: From HAL to Her: How Movies Teach Us to Fear and Love AI

🎤 Speaker: Prof. Drew McClellan

From rogue supercomputers to emotionally intelligent companions, cinema has long used artificial intelligence to explore humanity’s biggest hopes, fears, and ethical dilemmas.

In this engaging Lectures on Tap presentation, award-winning filmmaker and educator Prof. Drew McClellan examines how films have shaped our cultural understanding of AI and emerging technology. Through iconic scenes from classics and contemporary favorites like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Ex Machina, I, Robot, Her, The Terminator, and The Matrix, he’ll connect Hollywood’s visions of intelligent machines to today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape.

By blending film analysis, pop-cultural criticism, and contemporary media discourse, Prof. McClellan will reveal how storytellers personify machines, dramatize human–AI relationships, and imagine the future of humanity through the lens of cinema.

Prof. Drew McClellan is an award-winning educator, filmmaker, and visual strategist, an adjunct professor at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and Chair of the Cinematic Arts Department at LACHSA, home to the nation’s top-ranked high school cinematic arts program.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

7:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

7:55 PM – Host introduction

8:00 PM – Lecture begins

8:45 PM – Audience Q&A

9:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

9:30 PM – Wrap up.