In his central role in the Manhattan Project, J. Robert Oppenheimer had to grapple with the meaning of humans developing atomic weapons – and trying to contain their dangers.

A student of the Bhagavad-Gita from ancient India, he famously uttered one line this way: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Tonight a biographical movie about the nuclear physicist opens at a timely moment, because humans are wrestling afresh with the question of self-created dangers – from today’s weapons of mass destruction to artificial intelligence. AI hasn’t been conceived first and foremost as a weapon, yet it contains what many experts see as its own existential threat – the potential to disrupt societies in ways that scientists and policymakers can’t control.

After World War II, Oppenheimer shifted his focus from arms development to arms control. He and others recognized the problem called “alignment” – how to make innovations serve humanity and not be misused by authoritarians, criminals, or ignorant power brokers.

Writing recently in The Wall Street Journal, David Nirenberg of the Institute for Advanced Study argues that, as Oppenheimer saw it, safety will not ultimately be achieved by technological improvements or by using game theory to improve the odds of humans avoiding disasters with their machines. Rather, he saw the need for humans to pair their technical prowess with awareness of their ethics, politics, spirituality, and values.

An editorial last week in the journal Science calls for a similar awakening.

“The impacts of advanced AI cannot be mitigated through technical means alone; solutions that do not include broader societal insight will only compound AI’s dangers,” write authors Seth Lazar and Alondra Nelson.

AI, like nuclear weapons, asks urgent questions not of our technological prowess or political power, but of our whole “best selves.”