An interesting older film - Colossus: The Forbin Project

[Joelist]

Colossus: The Forbin Project has appeared on Vimeo which allowed for a rewatch and refresh on it. It is a highly recommended and interesting film and here are some thought and a question.

Thoughts:

1) For the time it was made the effects are pretty good. Not megabucks but very effective in creating the era correct visual template.

2) VERY well directed. The tone is set early and held to consistently. There are bits of humor to leaven things but they don't disrupt the serious, relentless pace and tone of the film.

3) Well acted. Eric Braeden and Susan Clark both inhabit their characters well. What is also interesting is even though no one is portraying it so to speak, the script does an excellent job of making Colossus feel like a character as well. Which goes to....

4) Well written. James Bridges did a great job with the screenplay. It adapts the novel well and gives it a sort of pseudo documentary tone in places but keeping it feeling very human all through.

Here is the question - let me know what you think:

IS COLOSSUS EVIL?

Here is the link to Vimeo:

View: https://vimeo.com/394729987

 

[YJ02]

Colossus: The Forbin Project has appeared on Vimeo which allowed for a rewatch and refresh on it. It is a highly recommended and interesting film and here are some thought and a question.

Thoughts:

1) For the time it was made the effects are pretty good. Not megabucks but very effective in creating the era correct visual template.

2) VERY well directed. The tone is set early and held to consistently. There are bits of humor to leaven things but they don't disrupt the serious, relentless pace and tone of the film.

3) Well acted. Eric Braeden and Susan Clark both inhabit their characters well. What is also interesting is even though no one is portraying it so to speak, the script does an excellent job of making Colossus feel like a character as well. Which goes to....

4) Well written. James Bridges did a great job with the screenplay. It adapts the novel well and gives it a sort of pseudo documentary tone in places but keeping it feeling very human all through.

Here is the question - let me know what you think:

IS COLOSSUS EVIL?

Here is the link to Vimeo:

View: https://vimeo.com/394729987

I remember this watched it has a kid!

The actor-- Braden or Bradon? he was also in Escape the Planet of the Apes, always puts on a good job acting

i think he is still acting too

i didn't rewatch it all right now,, but watching the beginning, i think i remember most

colossus as supercomputer for us govt and nukes- right? then it allies itself with an enemy computer cant remember if russia or china

as a kid and who was cognizant we were in the era of M.A.D., it was a scary thing to watch at that age

also a tad bit of 'connective tissue' to 2001 space odyssey. as if the "world" of COLOSSUS could have been the forebear of the "world" of 2001- where both create and depend on 'supercomputers' for so much

thanks for the reminder!

 

[YJ02]

i searched ROKU and it is on a free 'channel' called movieland tv as well

 

[Joelist]

Kind of a necro.

This is still up on Vimeo and I still recommend it.

Wanted to see what people thought of the basic question.....IS COLOSSUS EVIL?

 

[Overmind One]

Wow, so this movie has a lot of charged memories for me! This was probably the most impactful scifi movie I saw after Star Trek TOS was canceled. I thought the writing was awesome, and the way they developed the Colossus AI character was realistic. The ending of the movie is what made it impactful. We lost. It was nihilistic but intriguing. I read the sequel novels, but those went off the rails for me and I am glad they were not made into movies.

Let me throw in my vote on "Is colossus evil?":

No. Colossus is EFFICIENT. The question here is can any AI have morals? If you tell it to make life better for Mankind, then a lack of morality when considering solutions will lead to eugenics, elimination of money and property, elimination of those who murder and/or commit crimes (including those against Authority), and totalitarianism with the AI in charge of the government. So, I say Colossus was doing what it was designed to do, even though I am fundamentally against how they deployed Colossus and that they gave it control of the military.

 

[Joelist]

I also am glad they left the sequel books alone as they went in a weird direction.

The observation about morals is a great one. We already saw in the movie where Colossus being an emotionless and efficient AI (not to mention a SILS) did some pretty nasty things (like having programming heads executed for trying to overload it) and its object lesson cost thousands of lives. Also by movie's end you could see the change in Forbin from treating it like a superb computer to finally hating it and being deeply angry at it when it set off the two nukes.

I would have liked any sequel to have Forbin change tactics from what the governments tried in the first movie - instead of trying to overtly turn Colossus off try to engage it philosophically about what exactly is the "betterment of Man" and how can Colossus know what is best when it has no emotions. Then engage it on the concept of morals. The idea is that since there is no practical way to defeat it at least try to influence it away from the more extreme solutions.

 

[Overmind One]

I also am glad they left the sequel books alone as they went in a weird direction.

The observation about morals is a great one. We already saw in the movie where Colossus being an emotionless and efficient AI (not to mention a SILS) did some pretty nasty things (like having programming heads executed for trying to overload it) and its object lesson cost thousands of lives. Also by movie's end you could see the change in Forbin from treating it like a superb computer to finally hating it and being deeply angry at it when it set off the two nukes.

I would have liked any sequel to have Forbin change tactics from what the governments tried in the first movie - instead of trying to overtly turn Colossus off try to engage it philosophically about what exactly is the "betterment of Man" and how can Colossus know what is best when it has no emotions. Then engage it on the concept of morals. The idea is that since there is no practical way to defeat it at least try to influence it away from the more extreme solutions.

Exactly! That has been explored more than once in Star Trek, with Nomad, with Harry Mudd's android planet, with Landru, etc. I always scoffed at those because I know that in order for a machine to have morals, it also has to have emotions and be capable of empathy. Neither of which is something you can program into it. It also begs the question of whether or not a learning machine that gains sentience and knowledge might naturally evolve emotions and be capable of empathy. This is something Elon Musk loves to discuss at length.