Colossus: The Forbidden ProjectIt's odd how there seems to have been no stepping stone to get to this point. To go from total military autonomy to handing over control of your nuclear arsenal to a machine, strikes me as a big leap. While the film depicts a futuristic society, with video-phones and weird architecture, there are no other signs of robotic automation having been adopted into people's lives yet. No self-driving cars, people still mix their own drinks, humans still transcribe speech manually (with typewriters). And militarily there is no mention of previous smaller-scale projects to prove the concept. It appears that this machine is the first of it's kind, and purpose built for the job of making decisions about how, where and when to use the country's nuclear weapons. Realistically I think you would need a population who has grown comfortable with letting a computer make decisions for them for this kind of a project to ever go forward, and this would be the
last thing to be outsourced not the first.
Putting that aside, if nuclear decision making
were the first use of AI this is probably about how it would go. A total disaster, with everyone caught off guard by the machine's rationale and brutal logic. I mean if you haven't experimented with AI ever, and you just kind of dive in without thinking it through, then yea I guess you could be forgiven for not expecting it to behave like this. It would require a kind of mass naivete that is hard to believe though, even in an era where most people would never have used a computer before. People are wary of change. They're wary of new tech. The unanimous embrace of a totally new technology shown in this film is not recognizably human. And when things start to go sideways, even then they do not seem especially concerned. It takes the whole film before it seems to truly dawn on anyone just how serious the situation is. The system even drops a nuke on a Russian city, following through on it's threat to hand over control or else, and still the reaction is muted.
The other challenge of the film is understanding what this particular AI is and is not capable of. The crude method by which it communicates with humans is at odds with it's supposed intelligence. The rules around what it could and could not perceive were never clear to me. At times characters would speak to each other as if the AI could not overhear them... and then in other scenes characters would go out of their way to meet in a remote location because they are concerned about being overheard. It also is said that the machine is monitoring all the various communication frequencies in a manner Edward Snowden blew the whistle on. The specifics are unclear though. So it's hard to understand quite what they're up against, and judge the quality of their responses. Depending on what this AI is capable of, the attempts to disconnect it are either a pipe dream or a realistic solution. It's hard to say without a definite understanding of the AI itself and it's limitations. I felt I had better understanding of HAL for example in 2001.
The aforementioned calmness of the characters in the face of this crisis undermines the drama. At times the film almost becomes a comedy, as we see Dr. Forbin adapting to his life which now follows the rigid schedule laid down by the machine which he developed. He is permitted to see his mistress 4 times a week. He must exercise 1 hour a day. His meals are chosen for him. It's kind of a "what have I gotten myself into" montage... and the tone is weirdly light.
I wish the film had started where it finished. With the machine broadcasting its manifesto to the entire planet. Where does it go from there, I would love to know.
Overall, there are some fun moments, and sometimes you laugh at the film's expense, which is fine too. A blast from the past. But as a sci-fi, it didn't really cut the mustard for me. Also, that first 15 minutes is rough. It feels like every character is speaking at the same time, the whole time.