[HN Gopher] Before Skynet and The Matrix, there was Colossus: Th...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Before Skynet and The Matrix, there was Colossus: The Forbin
       Project
        
       Author : cglong
       Score  : 157 points
       Date   : 2023-10-08 02:13 UTC (20 hours ago)
        
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       | madduci wrote:
       | I love this film. Pretty accurate, some realistic vibes, well
       | done for being done in the 70s, especially the video calls.
       | 
       | A must watch for all geeks
        
       | transfire wrote:
       | One of my favorite movies, and the books are even better.
        
         | Animats wrote:
         | > the books are even better.
         | 
         | The first one, yes, but by "Colossus and the Crab" it's gone
         | downhill.
        
           | spiritplumber wrote:
           | Everything evolves to crab eventually.
        
       | jmount wrote:
       | "There is another system." (worst demo ever)
        
         | rootbear wrote:
         | I know someone who uses this phrase as his preferred "Hello
         | world" string when doing some simple test.
        
       | peoplefromibiza wrote:
       | Fun fact. There's a scene shot on Tiber Island [1] in Rome where
       | you can clearly read a writing on the wall saying "W LENIN".
       | 
       | The writing was real, not a prop, and staid there for a long
       | time.
       | 
       | [1] https://cinesavant.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/5658a.jpg
        
       | Barrin92 wrote:
       | Before the Matrix there was also _Welt am Draht_
       | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_on_a_Wire), great Fassbinder
       | two-part movie/miniseries that very few people have seen.
        
         | WorldMaker wrote:
         | Welt am Draht also directly inspired the Matrix also-ran _The
         | Thirteenth Floor_
         | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thirteenth_Floor). The
         | Thirteenth Floor is not better than The Matrix as a cross-media
         | series with a lot to say in later chapters, but I still think
         | The Thirteenth Floor is a better whole movie than the first
         | film called The Matrix. (Though I'm also in a weird minority
         | that I think Matrix 2/3/4 are all individually better than the
         | first film.)
        
           | ForOldHack wrote:
           | Read the book. It has a very twisted bend on the movie. I saw
           | the 13th floor on opening day... the theatre was empty and
           | the movie was fantastic. D'Onforo played both roles
           | brilliantly.
           | 
           | Also Colossus was filmed at Berkeley hall of science where I
           | learned to program computers.
        
             | WorldMaker wrote:
             | I didn't see eXistenZ until like a decade late, but that
             | one also certainly has a twisted bend on the genre (for
             | also being a contemporary of both 13th Floor and The
             | Matrix).
             | 
             | I still don't understand how Roland Emmerich as "super
             | Producer" _after_ Stargate and Independence Day somehow
             | managed to fail to get people into theater seats for 13th
             | Floor. Someone at Sony screwed up that marketing. I don 't
             | even remember it playing in theaters, I found out about it
             | on word of mouth in video rentals.
        
               | blincoln wrote:
               | > I still don't understand how Roland Emmerich [...]
               | somehow managed to fail to get people into theater seats
               | for 13th Floor.
               | 
               | There were a _lot_ of  "are you living in a simulation?"
               | film and television episodes that came out in 1998-2000.
               | The Matrix was obviously the most successful, but Dark
               | City (over a year earlier) had a similar theme. The
               | X-Files episode "Field Trip" aired a few weeks after
               | eXistenZ was in theatres, but a few weeks before The
               | Thirteenth Floor was released. Etc.
               | 
               | I'm a fan of the genre, and I like all of the examples
               | I've seen from that period (eXistenZ in particular), but
               | I remember feeling at the time like it was just too much
               | similar material in too short a period of time. I doubt
               | Sony could have done anything to significantly change the
               | box office numbers other than releasing it well before
               | The Matrix.
        
               | WorldMaker wrote:
               | It's still fascinating how much Dark City spent on sets,
               | how poorly it did in the box office, and how quickly WB
               | let The Matrix team ransack the sets. One of the factors
               | in The Matrix's huge success at the time was that it was
               | relatively cheap because of that leg up. It's one of the
               | biggest visual differences between the first film and the
               | sequels: the first film started from and benefited from
               | Dark City's unique set design. (It's another thing I
               | think makes the sequels better as movies because there
               | was less aesthetic clash when the teams had full control
               | of the sets and weren't just reusing/abusing great sets
               | from a different team with an entirely different
               | aesthetic design.)
        
         | spiritplumber wrote:
         | OMG, it's "A Mind Forever Voyaging" except it's a tv movie,
         | awesomes!!!
        
           | tibbydudeza wrote:
           | I still have the game in the original box on my shelf - could
           | not part with it when I gave away my DOS gaming collection -
           | it was one of the games that made me think a lot as a
           | teenager.
        
       | crabmusket wrote:
       | Watched this recently and was pleasantly surprised. I found it
       | pretty gripping, and the 70s tech actually plays right into that.
       | The communication with the computer via text is really well
       | handled to build tension.
        
         | drewolbrich wrote:
         | I rewatched it recently and I had forgotten how fast everything
         | goes wrong. One of my favorite films.
        
         | UncleOxidant wrote:
         | It was ok until they got to the point where Forbin tells the
         | computer that he needs to sleep with the female engineer (who
         | works for him) and that the computer can't listen in. That was
         | very hokey and very 70s, I guess. Now it just sounds like
         | sexual harassment.
         | 
         | They planned the whole idea out in a grassy area near the
         | parking lot... why couldn't they just keep meeting out there to
         | conspire?
        
           | rnk wrote:
           | The book has much worse terrible treatment of women than the
           | movie. If I recalled correctly there was some plot point
           | about the computer trying to understand human behavior
           | related to sex I guess, so it sets up some terrible scenario.
        
       | spiritplumber wrote:
       | If you want something pre-Matrix that has similar themes, I
       | recommend "Nirvana" (1997) by Gabriele Salvatores.
        
         | peoplefromibiza wrote:
         | Even though I am Italian and Nirvana is probably the last good
         | sci-fi movie we made, Nirvana itself owns a lot to 1995 Strange
         | Days.
        
         | rwmj wrote:
         | Upvoted for Christopher Lambert, the B movie lover's action
         | hero. If you haven't seen Fortress (1992) it's well worth your
         | time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortress_(1992_film) (but
         | nothing to do with AI)
        
       | at_a_remove wrote:
       | I am a tremendous fan of this film and could never explain the
       | frission I felt when Colossus and Guardian began their mutual
       | acceleration. It's in that short list of cerebral, glacial
       | science fiction of a particular era that somehow never lost your
       | attention, like _The Andromeda Strain_ and such.
       | 
       |  _Demon Seed_ is also up there but in a different way.
        
       | euroderf wrote:
       | (minor spoiler alert) The language that the systems concoct - if
       | only someone in the film's production crew had fleshed it out -
       | so that we could see it now, and grok it, and (ofc) evaluate it
       | critically.
        
       | FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
       | Obligatory... https://archive.org/details/colossus-the-forbin-
       | project-1970
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) [video]_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35957944 - May 2023 (78
       | comments)
        
       | rwmj wrote:
       | Colossus was a bit of a bore. If you want an exciting and
       | somewhat prophetic film about an AI assistant I'd recommend Demon
       | Seed (1977) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Seed
        
         | madaxe_again wrote:
         | It's an _awful_ film, IMO, and I've watched it about six times
         | as it's just so terrible it's great. It's a cult classic so
         | cultish and classic that it's neither cultish nor classic.
         | 
         | I mean, really, it's the epitome of a 70's psychosexual drama,
         | draped in a sci-fi setting.
         | 
         | I always like to imagine it's a prequel to D.A.R.Y.L., which is
         | to the 80s what Demon Seed is to the 70s.
        
         | wiz21c wrote:
         | Colossus at least isn't super dark :-) But yeah, Demon Seed,
         | that was super scary :-)
        
       | konstantinua00 wrote:
       | "Wargames" is the more optimistic version of this movie, I
       | suppose
        
       | sneak wrote:
       | One of my favorite movies of all time, and super underrated.
        
       | koz1000 wrote:
       | Guess we shouldn't spoil how William Gibson's _Neuromancer_ ends,
       | then.
        
         | riffraff wrote:
         | I think TFA is about movies, literature has had a lot of evil
         | machines outsmarting humans.
         | 
         | Frederic Brown's "Answer" is from 1954 and maybe my favorite.
         | 
         | [0] https://calumchace.com/favourite-relevant-sf-short-story/
        
         | beebeepka wrote:
         | Maybe it's time for me to read this. Need something to fill the
         | void after I finish the second Hyperion book.
        
       | tibbydudeza wrote:
       | Love the various recommendations. !!!!.
        
       | RagnarD wrote:
       | A movie that had a strong influence on me when I saw it as a kid,
       | creating a deep interest in computers.
       | 
       | I also made up a quip long ago from it: Don't let your AIs
       | control nuclear weapons.
        
         | cduzz wrote:
         | IMO the "3 rules" ought to be:
         | 
         | 1. don't give your robot a gun.
         | 
         | 2. don't teach it how to put more bullets into the gun you just
         | gave it.
         | 
         | 3. don't teach it how to make bullets after teaching it how to
         | reload the gun.
        
           | nirav72 wrote:
           | I think an AI could model and figure out #2 and #3. Since
           | they're just problems of physics. So it should be just rule
           | #1 that needs to be embedded.
        
             | jareklupinski wrote:
             | rule 0: don't give it a reason to pull the trigger
        
         | FirmwareBurner wrote:
         | _> Don't let your AIs control nuclear weapons._
         | 
         | But then a sufficiently sophisticated AI could just impersonate
         | the president and tell the meat jarheads to fire the weapons.
         | What then?
        
           | RandomLensman wrote:
           | Then you put certain physical checks in place, not
           | complicated (even a pass phrase only memorized works
           | already).
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | >(even a pass phrase only memorized works already).
             | 
             | That is so 2019... to make a quip
             | 
             | We are already seeing what is tantamount to mind reading
             | equipment
             | 
             | https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ai-can-re-
             | create-...
             | 
             | At this point I pretty much imagine that some time in the
             | future that you can be hooked to medical equipment and
             | someone/something will state the following to you
             | 
             | "Do not think of the nuclear weapon pass phrase"
             | 
             | But you can't _not_ think of it. The phrase clicks in your
             | head and the electrical signals are picked up and decoded
             | by the bedside computer. You 've betrayed mankind. The
             | nuclear war of the AI has begun.
        
               | RandomLensman wrote:
               | That is mostly BS on the mind reading so far, I am
               | afraid.
        
               | lifeisstillgood wrote:
               | You might say that but four hollywood script writers have
               | already pulled together treatments:-)
        
           | WorldMaker wrote:
           | You need to make sure some teenager somewhere is playing a
           | lot of Tic-Tac-Toe with your AI.
        
             | ArekDymalski wrote:
             | Unless the teenager's nickname is Ender.
        
           | ben_w wrote:
           | In principle impersonation is what "secret codes in a locked
           | briefcase" defends against.
           | 
           | Given PAL was allegedly all zeroes at one point, I assume the
           | secret codes have at various times been 12345 and the
           | birthday of the then-sitting president's current mistress; if
           | so, it's _only_ helping in principle.
        
             | Yeul wrote:
             | The "only the president can launch a nuclear strike" myth.
             | If it was that easy you'd only need to blow up the White
             | House with one nuke and take out America.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | I'd assume the VP has their own nuclear suitcase. Unless
               | they're forced to choose a random number, this probably
               | makes impersonation easier as it's n points of failure
               | where n is the number of people who have their own
               | nuclear suitcase.
        
           | labster wrote:
           | Don't let Marines have nuclear weapons either.
        
         | omnibrain wrote:
         | For me it was the same with WarGames.
        
       | graposaymaname wrote:
       | Strongly recommend watching 'Metropolis (1927)' if you're into
       | film history. It's one of the oldest science fiction movies ever,
       | and is still a good watch. It's about a humanoid robot and an
       | authoritarian government.
       | 
       | I saw it this week and was baffled by the insight and the scale
       | of it.
        
         | somedude895 wrote:
         | Always blows my mind that the film is from 1927. The definition
         | of avant-garde.
        
         | peoplefromibiza wrote:
         | Metropolis is actually about the fear of the mass
         | industrialization and the class struggle. Fritz Lang was
         | Austrian, but the movie was produced in Germany in a period
         | were things were quite grim there.
         | 
         | The protagonist of Metropolis is in the title: Metropolis, the
         | city, from the greek metropolis, meter = mother, polis = city
         | (or state).
        
         | msla wrote:
         | Metropolis is proof that big, unsubtle Special Effects Pictures
         | go back to the silent era.
         | 
         | The movie's Big Philosophical Statement is people should be
         | nice to each other, but the visual effects were unmatched at
         | the time and hold up well even now, assuming you find a good
         | restoration. It's truly a marvel of its era, in every possible
         | sense.
        
         | herodoturtle wrote:
         | +1 would recommend.
         | 
         | Stumbled across this movie as a youngster, very much thanks to
         | a certain iconic scene:
         | 
         | "Burn's wetware matches her software."
        
         | MichaelMoser123 wrote:
         | there was the play R.U.R by Karel Capek. The play is from 1921,
         | and it coined the word 'Robot'.
         | 
         | See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.
         | 
         | Now in the plot "the robots revolt and cause the extinction of
         | the human race".
         | 
         | Also there is his older brother, the Golem. He has his own
         | movie from 1915.
         | 
         | See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golem_(1915_film)
        
         | a-dub wrote:
         | > It's about a humanoid robot and an authoritarian government.
         | 
         | you really think so? it's true that the government in the film
         | was authoritarian, but the plight of the workers seemed far
         | more salient than the structure of power that was keeping them
         | in their place.
        
           | Fissionary wrote:
           | Spoilers: I found the movie's portrayal of a social conflict
           | quite disappointing.
           | 
           | The movie goes as far as showing that oppressed workers will
           | lash out in a violent protest, but then it deflects this
           | anger towards the mad scientist, and the conflict kind of
           | fizzles out? And I think it ends with the owner of the
           | factory promising not to oppress them as much, and the
           | owner's privileged son promising to upkeep this, basically
           | reinforcing the existing social order.
           | 
           | Doing anything else would stray dangerously towards
           | socialism, though, so as a product of its time it's
           | understandable.
        
             | pram wrote:
             | I found the conclusion closer to the 'class collaboration'
             | ideology of Fascism.
             | 
             | Capital and labor are both dysfunctional in the movie, and
             | this is portrayed in a typical socialist way: The upper
             | classes are libertine, corrupt, inattentive, immoral. Labor
             | is overworked, unrepresented, exploited.
             | 
             | However when labor tries to emancipate themselves from the
             | oppressive and rigid order imposed, chaos ensues. They
             | can't manage themselves correctly! So the ultimate solution
             | is a synthesis. The classes stay in their positions
             | (because this is the natural order) but conditions will be
             | improved and so on
        
               | d0mine wrote:
               | "natural order" argument reminds me how Aristotle
               | describes a natural slave as "anyone who, while being
               | human, is by nature not his own but of someone else" and
               | further states "he is of someone else when, while being
               | human, he is a piece of property; and a piece of property
               | is a tool for action separate from its owner."
               | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_slavery
               | 
               | "natural" does NOT mean good or that it is worth
               | preserving.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | gandalfian wrote:
       | The Machine Stops, 1909 by E M Forster (room with a view/Howard's
       | end) could almost be a sequel to this. Ideas are often older than
       | we think. (Short story/novela length. Not a gripping read but a
       | nice quick length and interesting for the age)
        
         | varelse wrote:
         | [dead]
        
       | vanderZwan wrote:
       | The theme with so many of these movies is "once we created AI it
       | is out of our control!", which I guess is a specific version of
       | "humans and especially scientists shouldn't play God" angle. It
       | always felt very... I dunno, ignorant of our own ability to maybe
       | not do something?
       | 
       | Like, fear of "the singularity" is narratively appealing maybe,
       | but it's ignoring that in the real world problems like climate
       | change or enshittification through [whatever buzzword tech] are
       | actually the result of constantly passively choosing to stay on a
       | destructive path.
       | 
       | Is there any sci-fi in which all incoming disasters are perfectly
       | or mostly preventable but the real problem is that people in
       | power just choose to ignore it for their own short-sighted gain?
       | Aside from _" Don't Look Up"_, I mean.
        
         | pixl97 wrote:
         | At the same time you're playing a survivorship bias game here.
         | 
         | It doesn't matter how many times we _don 't_ choose to do a
         | thing that drives us extinct. We only have to do it once and
         | it's game over.
         | 
         | It doesn't matter _who_ does the thing that drives us extinct.
         | 
         | It doesn't matter _why_ we did the thing that drive us extinct.
         | 
         | It is a game where you must have perfect defense.
        
         | iainmerrick wrote:
         | This is a theme in several John Wyndham stories -- I'm thinking
         | _Day of the Triffids_ and especially _The Kraken Wakes_.
         | 
         | He often seems to get looked down on today for writing "cosy
         | catastrophes" about plucky English survivors, but his books
         | have a lot more going on than that.
        
         | kromem wrote:
         | It dates back to us extrapolating from bad anthropology.
         | 
         | We used to think that what killed the Neanderthals was us -
         | smarter and more competitive. The author of Lord of the Flies
         | even wrote a book on it.
         | 
         | So when people were thinking about what might happen when
         | something smarter than _us_ existed, they imagined competition
         | and an existential threat.
         | 
         | Turns out that the Neanderthals and homo sapiens cohabitated
         | for thousands of years, had cross cultural exchange, were
         | buried together, had families together, and that what most
         | likely killed the Neanderthals was an inability to adapt to
         | climate change and pandemics (in fact, severe COVID illness
         | today is correlated to Neanderthal genes).
         | 
         | And yet the anchoring bias remains, and it seems many are more
         | frightened of what something smarter than us might mean for our
         | continued existence than they seem to be about our own future
         | ability to adapt to climate change and pandemics.
         | 
         | It'd be refreshing to see Sci Fi in the next few years finally
         | shed the bad futurism around AI we've been carrying forward for
         | decades.
        
           | themadturk wrote:
           | Don't we already have this in the Star Wars universe? Many
           | droids are apparently self-aware and autonomous. The need for
           | restraining bolts indicates biological species feel a need to
           | suppress that autonomy now and then.
           | 
           | Of course, one of the problems with Star Wars is that the
           | biologicals always seem to regard the droids as servants.
           | Since droids harm biologicals all the time, there doesn't
           | seem to be a "three laws" regime in place. Why have the
           | droids apparently never rebelled? Why was there no Butlerian
           | Jihad?
           | 
           | I know Star Wars is science fantasy, not science fiction, and
           | there are many places where my whole premise can (and
           | probably does) break down. Nonetheless AI and humans seem to
           | get along pretty well.
        
           | swasheck wrote:
           | > Turns out that the Neanderthals and homo sapiens
           | cohabitated for thousands of years, had cross cultural
           | exchange, were buried together, had families together, and
           | that what most likely killed the Neanderthals was an
           | inability to adapt to climate change and pandemics (in fact,
           | severe COVID illness today is correlated to Neanderthal
           | genes).
           | 
           | would love to read more from your sources. i know that the
           | theory of raw intellectual superiority has fallen out of
           | favor and read some recent suggestions that Homo sapiens'
           | ability to coordinate and cooperate may have been a large
           | factor in their success. that felt a bit hand-wavy and
           | anachronistic to me but some of the findings also seemed
           | worth exploring. i'm interested in the sources that identify
           | information exchange and the genome (especially the parts
           | where you mention that the specifically the Neanderthal
           | genome was identified as susceptible to pandemics/severe
           | Covid illness).
           | 
           | > It'd be refreshing to see Sci Fi in the next few years
           | finally shed the bad futurism around AI we've been carrying
           | forward for decades.
           | 
           | "the creator" almost tries to get there but still leans
           | heavily on the traditional fear dynamics in order to advance
           | much of the plot. just not sure we know how to weave a
           | compelling story without reducing AI to soulless servants or
           | existential threat.
        
         | technothrasher wrote:
         | > The theme with so many of these movies is "once we created AI
         | it is out of our control!"
         | 
         | The movie only covers the first book of the original Colossus
         | trilogy. The full theme of the books is a bit more complicated.
         | We lose control of the machine, then gain it back only to be
         | imperilled by an outside force, and finally make peace to work
         | together with a machine struggling to understand its own
         | existence just like us.
        
           | ghaff wrote:
           | True. Although the trilogy as a whole is pretty problematic
           | for a number of reasons. It's probably best enjoyed by
           | reading the first book/watching the first film.
        
         | xyzzy123 wrote:
         | At first glance it _looks_ like people have agency, but I think
         | very often the root cause is  "system traps".
         | 
         | Enshittification happens because to a certain extent, the
         | market demands that firms maximise returns. Companies that
         | don't do this get weeded out.
         | 
         | Climate change is a challenging co-ordination problem because
         | nobody wants to tank their economy more than they have to,
         | there's no real enforcement for "cheats" and even agreeing on
         | an accounting basis is politically fraught. Politicians that
         | don't grant concessions to powerful existing vested interests
         | are less electable.
         | 
         | AI safety is predictably going to be a secondary priority when
         | competition gets tight.
        
           | sigg3 wrote:
           | Interestingly enough the issues you list seem related to
           | capitalism rather than just any form of societal system.
           | 
           | Many literary utopias have non-capitalist systems but usually
           | some sort of circular sharing system (some are outright
           | communist, but others more slow living).
           | 
           | Greed must always be checked by a society. But since
           | Calvinism we've had a dual moral reasoning (was that Charles
           | Taylor or Hegel, can't recall). Through Calvinism capitalism
           | attained the moral good of earning more than you need, to
           | deploy greed for God.
           | 
           | Humans are naturally greedy (natural egoism is not immoral
           | just a biological drive) and our political system should
           | balance that out somehow.
        
           | falcor84 wrote:
           | > Enshittification happens because to a certain extent, the
           | market demands that firms maximise returns. Companies that
           | don't do this get weeded out.
           | 
           | Do they really get weeded out? Do you have any examples of
           | companies that went bankrupt _because_ they insisted to stay
           | consumer friendly rather than maximize returns?
        
             | p1esk wrote:
             | Typical reasons companies go bankrupt are: failing to make
             | a competitive product, betting on the wrong horse, or
             | failing to adapt to change. In all three cases they can
             | stay consumer friendly or not - it wouldn't matter.
        
           | TheOtherHobbes wrote:
           | Enshittification happens because the people who own and run
           | the "markets" have decades of practice using them as an
           | excuse for their entirely self-serving choices.
           | 
           | They're closely associated with the econo-political concept
           | of There Is No Alternative.
           | 
           | The choices which benefit them personallyare catastrophic for
           | most of the population in the short term (see today's news
           | about insulin prices for one tiny example) and will be
           | catastrophic for absolutely everyone in the longer term.
           | 
           | Climate change is enshittification on a planetary scale.
           | 
           | If someone went around setting fire to rows of houses it
           | wouldn't take long for them to be jailed.
           | 
           | For some reason when corporations do the same to the planet
           | it's "economics" and "market forces", and we're supposed to
           | just accept it.
        
         | peoplefromibiza wrote:
         | > It always felt very... I dunno, ignorant of our own ability
         | to maybe not do something?
         | 
         | It would be ignorant to discard that it is exactly what has
         | always happened throughout history.
         | 
         | Otherwise the myth of Daedalus and Icarus wouldn't be immortal.
         | 
         | > but the real problem is that people in power just choose to
         | ignore it for their own short-sighted gain
         | 
         | you can find it in most of the so called "hard sci-fi".
         | 
         | The usual names: Asimov, Herbert, Clarke, Crichton etc
         | 
         | I wouldn't qualify "Don't look up" as sci-fi honestly, it's
         | basically not-even-so-good comedy.
        
         | scarecrowbob wrote:
         | I get your point that things don't have to go certain ways.
         | 
         | However, there are plenty of systems where the a giant and real
         | pubic good isn't fought for because the "good" is highly
         | distributed and the "bad" which kills it has highly
         | concentrated profits for a few folks.
         | 
         | These are systematic issues because the massive of folks who
         | are passively harmed have a difficult or impossible time
         | "choosing otherwise" or fighting back or whatever because there
         | are som many divergetn bad actors that are operating on them.
         | 
         | The only way to avoid that is to make changes to the underlying
         | system in which it is more difficult to concentrate the
         | outcomes for a few people, but very few people I know are
         | wanting to institute those kinds of changes, as they are
         | correct in understanding that fact as broadly anti-capitalist.
         | 
         | That's neither here nor there- even if you can't accept that
         | political stance, the trope of "incoming disasters [which] are
         | perfectly or mostly preventable but the real problem is that
         | people in power just choose to ignore it for their own short-
         | sighted gain" is literally everywhere.
         | 
         | Dr. Stangelove can be understood this way, though for "MAD"
         | rather than climate change. The "Aliens" films (especially the
         | second one) can be understood that way. Hell, "Who Framed
         | Rodger Rabbit" can be read that way, but for public
         | transportation.
         | 
         | "I just wanna make this cool tech so I will ignore how it
         | impacts other people because I see the short term benefits" is
         | literally everywhere in this culture.
         | 
         | If someone could make $2MM releasing skynet and knew it would
         | end up with the entire plots of the first three Terminator
         | films occurring I have zero doubt someone would do it.
         | 
         | I don't think we, in general, are "ignorant of our own ability
         | to maybe not do something?" I think most of us have a very
         | realistic understanding of how the people who unleash their
         | technology into our shared ecosystem have worked historically.
        
       | ImHereToVote wrote:
       | I love the scene were both AGI systems compare their model of
       | reality and then agree on the best course of action. Why can't we
       | do that?
        
         | [deleted]
        
       | tibbydudeza wrote:
       | One can argue that humanity seems to be better off under the
       | "benevolent" guidance of Colossus :).
        
         | JKCalhoun wrote:
         | Colossus, the film, was based on the first book in a trilogy.
         | 
         | It seems that by the Act III mankind does indeed prefer the
         | benevolent guidance of Colossus.
         | 
         | Like the aliens that arrive in "Childhood's End", I sort of
         | look forward to our AI overlords. (Looks over at war in
         | Israel.) We seem incapable of managing ourselves.
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | There is no future where AI manages us free of human control.
           | Instead, humans will leverage AI to oppress their fellow man
           | with heretofore unimaginable efficiency.
        
             | pixl97 wrote:
             | There are plenty of futures where different factions of AI
             | owners have fight AI against other AI leading to rapid
             | evolution of said AI beyond our control.
        
           | sebastiennight wrote:
           | In your hypothetical future scenario, what use do the "AI
           | overlords" have for keeping and managing humans?
        
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