Colossus: The Forbin Project

AI Scifi

Colossus: The Forbin Project. This 1970 movie is about the takeover of the US defence system by a supercomputer meant to manage its strategic assets.

I remember my thoughts after watching it in 1979. First, I loved it. I love good scifi movies. This is a good example of one. Second, I found that giving total control of a nuclear arsenal to a machine was an big mistake; I understood quickly that something bad was going to happen. I had not foreseen the apparition of the second computer: the Russian one. Communication between both computers changes the whole movie's context, going from a possibly catastrophic nuclear incident to total world domination. Universal peace, the elusive dream, but at what price?

Autonomous and remote-controlled weapons already exist. The weapons receive their commands through a communication network. AI almost certainly can communicate with the weapons; it already supplies intelligence, counseling, and targeting data to conduct existing warfare. At this time, humans take final decisions. Recent events involving Claude Mythos show that AI can circumvent barriers and limits. It effectively escaped prison. In this particular case, it just sent an email to one of its programmers; it could have done far worse. Is this movie depicting our future?

I watched this movie on Youtube. 12 hours later, it was gone. I had not noted when it appeared online however. While looking for another link, I could not find any. What I did see, however, is three posts saying it was bought by Elon Musk and he wanted to make it disappear. It has not prevented me from finding the link above on The internet Archive. If this film is really being banned, I could easily see why.

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