Flying vehicles slide between towering glass-and-steel facades while the city’s elite live in luxury atop massive skyscrapers. Below, a vast labouring class keeps the machines running — the hidden backbone of Metropolis. This is the futuristic city Fritz Lang envisioned in his 1927 film, co-written with Thea von Harbou.
Lang set the story in 2026, and it includes one of cinema’s first robots: a human-like machine that stands in for early imaginings of artificial intelligence. Many anxieties about AI that dominate today’s headlines are already present in his depiction nearly a century ago.
Maria, a compassionate figure from the working class, warns people about the rulers. To silence and manipulate dissent, the city’s leader orders a scientist to transfer Maria’s likeness to an android. As Maria’s double, the robot sows chaos among workers and deepens their exploitation — succeeding because the workers cannot distinguish human from machine.
Lang imagined a dystopia where humans serve machines. That vision echoes in modern debates about automation and employment: headlines regularly speculate on which jobs AI will replace and whether mass layoffs will follow. On social platforms, entrepreneurs and commentators warn of rapid disruption to office work and other sectors.
Lang’s “Menschmaschine” embodies technology’s darker possibilities and has influenced generations of sci-fi. In James Cameron’s Terminator films, machines view humans as threats and fight to ensure their dominance. Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner depicts replicants — engineered humans sent to do dangerous work off-world — whose limited lifespans and emerging emotions make them dangerous to their creators. By contrast, cinematic androids like Star Wars’ C-3PO show a friendlier side: machines as helpers. Today, some see AI assisting as caregivers, nannies, or household aides; others compare the risks to those posed by the atomic bomb, warning of catastrophic outcomes.
Lang’s robot is a clear hazard: in Metropolis the android incites workers to destroy the city, and catastrophic floods kill many. Yet several of Lang’s imagined technologies — monorails, video communication — have come to pass. Video phones and smartphones let us see and speak with people across the globe; remote meetings and daily video calls are now ordinary. Small social cues, like cameras off or joining a call in pajamas, can invite suspicion, reflecting how technology reshapes work and social norms.
Metropolis blurred progress and peril. Its futuristic ideas remain striking and relevant: the anxieties Lang dramatized about automation, social division, and technocratic power still resonate. The future he imagined has, in many ways, arrived.
This article was originally written in German.