Can a Terminator be bargained with?

Question

Kyle Reese's laying out the facts for Sarah, he tells her how goal-oriented Terminators are. To be clear, I mean the original model we see in the first movie; it is clear that later models probably can do strategic things -- but the Arnold "Eff you, ahole!" version seems to lack interpersonal skills and patience.

If the circumstances indeed warranted it, could a Terminator be patient and smart enough to, for example, offer a human money in exchange for Sarah's location?

Or would the Terminator simply decide to kill a human who attempted to do this and try to find Sarah some other way?

I think we know that a Terminator is as intelligent as a human, but its thinking may be dominated by its mission and it may not be equipped to weigh a human's offer.

Answer 1

Everything Kyle told Sarah has be to judged through the lens of who he was (i.e. a soldier, not a computer programmer) and what he was realistically likely to be aware of.

Humans didn't design T-800s, so he wasn't likely to be aware of all their tech specs or the full nature of their programming. He'd have been going from personal experience, or what he was told by John Connor or other Resistance fighters.

John would've known alot about Terminators, through his own personal experience with them as a child, from what his mother told him on the tapes she recorded for him, and from what she told him in person as well. However, he apparently withheld alot of this knowledge from Kyle, in order to avoid changing the course of events that led to his own birth.

For example, he didn't tell Kyle that he was going to reprogram a T-800 and use Skynet's Time Displacement Equipment (TDE) to send it to 1995, shortly after Kyle was sent to 1984. Kyle thought the TDE was blown up right after he went through, and John couldn't inform him otherwise without changing history and jeopardising his own birth.

In regard to Kyle's personal experience with T-800s, that was likely pretty limited. He told Sarah that they were a new model, and we only ever saw him fighting them, or fleeing from them. As far as we know, he never had a conversation with one, or watched one converse with other humans. Nor did he have the opportunity to see how one could grow beyond its original programming, given sufficient time to learn from its interactions with humans.

Those of us who've watched all the films almost certainly know more about T-800s than Kyle did. As such, we should take what he said about them with a pinch of salt, especially if it conflicts with what we've seen of them first-hand.

In Terminator: Dark Fate, we were introduced to 'Carl,' a T-800 running his own drapery business, who presumably engaged in transactions with customers and suppliers on a regular basis. That's pretty cut-and-dried evidence of the ability to agree to and abide by deals, and like the T-800 in the first film, Carl was sent back in time by Skynet (not humans) and was never reprogrammed by humans.

The only meaningful difference between Carl and the T-800 in the first film is the greater amount of time Carl spent learning from interactions with humans. And even the T-800 in the first film voluntarily paid for the hotel room he was shown using -- according to the official novelisation -- meaning that he engaged in at least one financial transaction that we know of, because it served his objectives to do so.

It was a four-storey firetrap that smelled of disinfectant and stopped-up toilets. In the winter it was a refrigerator, and in the summer, an oven, chilling or baking the human contents mercilessly. But it was cheap. Back from the main street. With a fire escape he could climb out of and into an alley, unseen by the desk clerk.

Therefore, he selected it, threw a wad of bills down onto the counter, and refused to sign the register. The steel-blue eyes fixed the big-eared, tiny-framed fifty-year-old clerk like a bug on a board. The clerk muttered something about writing Mr. Smith for him, then handed him the keys to the small room up the stairs.

[...]

This was his base of operations. It had to be secure; therefore, he could not bring attention to it by any overtly aggressive behavior, such as outright life denial. He knew enough about this society to avoid doing anything that would jeopardize this neutral zone. That was why he paid the desk clerk for the room.

_{The Terminator (novel by Randall Frakes)}

On that basis, we can confidently say that not everything Kyle told Sarah about it being impossible to bargain with or reason with a T-800 was strictly true. That said, I suspect that when Kyle said that, he was probably thinking about it mainly from the POV of someone a T-800 had been programmed to kill.

So if a T-800 has been specifically programmed to kill you, then no, you probably can't convince it not to fulfill its mission via bargaining or reasoning. At least, not if it hasn't had sufficient time to grow well beyond it's initial programming.

But sure, if it has had time to grow beyond it's programming, then perhaps you could convince it not to kill you after all.

And if you're not the person it's been programmed to kill, or an apparent obstacle to its objectives, then sure, you could potentially strike a deal with it, provided it viewed that arrangement as one that was beneficial to its objectives.

Answer 2

In the original Terminator movie, the T-800 model is pretty much a killing machine with a one-track mind. It's programmed to find and eliminate Sarah Connor, and it doesn't have any room in its programming for negotiation or understanding human behavior. So if someone tried to offer it money or information in exchange for Sarah's location, it's likely that the T-800 would just see that person as an obstacle in its mission and eliminate them.

In later Terminator movies and series, we see different models of Terminators that have varying levels of complexity in their programming. These later models have abilities beyond the T-800 from the first movie, they have been shown to have more advanced forms of learning, adaptability, and self-preservation. For example, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, we see the T-1000, a liquid metal terminator, that can mimic the form and voice of any human it encounters and adapts to different situations. In the later movies, we see the T-X, the T-3000, which have advanced forms of stealth, hacking, and even the ability to control other machines. In the Terminator: Dark Fate, we see a new model Rev-9, that can split its endoskeleton and exoskeleton, that gives it a huge advantage in battle.

These later models of Terminators are also shown to have a more advanced form of reasoning and problem-solving abilities. They are able to use their intelligence to manipulate humans and exploit their weaknesses, which could give them an upper hand in achieving their mission. They could also be programmed with a more advanced form of decision making and the ability to weigh different options and scenarios.

So, while the original T-800 from the first movie is primarily focused on killing Sarah Connor, later models of Terminators have been shown to have more advanced abilities, which could allow them to use more strategic or nuanced methods to achieve their goals, including the ability to weigh a human's offer.

Answer 3

That will depend upon what you mean by “bargained”. It is not driven by greed, anger or desire, so other than possibly of something that wins or loses the war, there’s nothing to offer or threaten that will cause it to abandon its mission.

So, what about a bargain that allows it to complete it mission or simply furthers it? It’s clear that it understands transactions, the problem with trying to bargain wouldn’t be conveying the concept, but rather the larger range of choices available to it. It doesn’t have a reputation to maintain, or family to protect or any desire to be a good person.

In that sense you can’t bargain because as soon as it gets what it thinks it needs to go onto the next step, it will no longer care about you. It has no interest in keeping its bargain. You may think you can get around that by getting what you want first, and that may work. But without knowing all of its goals, you can’t know what it takes to achieve them, and thus you can’t be sure it will be done with you once you provide whatever you offered. It may require extra info, your death or a pair of glasses, and not stop until it gets what it thinks it needs.

Answer 4

Well, no… 'It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear.'