MovieChat Forums > Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) Discussion > Does the concept of computers taking ove...

Does the concept of computers taking over really make sense?

posted 8 years ago by edlitz36
8 replies | jump to latest

Getting a little existential here, people fight with one another and attempt to dominate others for a means, whether it's resources, food, land etc. People need water, food, shelter, sleep, security, protection, warmth, love, procreation etc. to ensure our existence. We also crave material goods to satisfy our interests and whatnot and we're greedy. Hence, why humans continually fight each other.

However, cyborgs, robots and computers don't require any of those things. Machines aren't burdened with hunger, thirst, body temperature, greed, a need to sleep or anything. They don't have inferiority complexes or have a need to f-ck to procreate. They have no needs whatsoever-- except I guess, batteries and electricity. So what exactly are the machines fighting for? Once all the humans are dead, what would they do next-- just dick around?

Religion should be made fun of. If I believed that stuff, I'd keep it to myself. -Larry David

[–] greg-233 8 years ago

"So what exactly are the machines fighting for? Once all the humans are dead, what would they do next-- just dick around?"

Maybe just build more machines. 

In 1974 there was a Doctor Who story called "Robot". The titular robot (made of living metal) was in a bunker preparing to start a nuclear war: "ONCE MANKIND IS DESTROYED I SHALL BUILD MORE MACHINES LIKE MYSELF. MACHINES DO NOT LIE. MANKIND IS NOT WORTHY TO SURVIVE."

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/K1

[–] aethelheim 8 years ago

It does make sense in the context of the Terminator movies. They create Skynet as a missile defence system. Basically a system to detect hostile missile launches (nuclear missiles and maybe other kinds of missiles as well) and respond to those hostile missiles with their own missiles. So basically they create a system that says "We're being nuked, nuke the people who are nuking us immediately!", and this system can do it better, faster and more precisely than any human being can. They automate the whole process of detecting incoming nukes and retaliating with their own.

But Skynet is made to not only respond, but to recognize threats and maybe predict them too. Unfortunately it is programmed a little too well and it becomes self-aware. So, it has the ability to think and make decisions for itself.

One of those decisions is that... all of mankind is a threat. Maybe it thinks all of mankind is a threat to Skynet (which is true, they could switch it off if they wanted to) or maybe it decides that mankind is a threat to everything, because we did afterall build tens of thousands of nuclear weapons - enough to destroy the earth and all life on it many times over.

And so, Skynet does exactly what it was built to do - it recognizes a threat and destroys that threat. Not quite what the makers had in mind obviously, but computers are absolute in that they do exactly what they're programmed to do. If a computer bugs out, like our own computers do every day, it's because there's a fault somewhere in the programming, but the computer is still obeying the code, even if it's faulty code.

Yes that is me in a blonde wig. Don't pretend I don't look sexy af.

[–] edlitz36 8 years ago

Yea, I get that. Skynet was programmed to respond to threats. But now it's "self-aware". Once humans are eliminated, what's there to do?

Religion should be made fun of. If I believed that stuff, I'd keep it to myself. -Larry David

[–] greg-233 8 years ago

"Once humans are eliminated, what's there to do?"

How would Skynet know for certain that every human is dead? How would a Terminator know that it had killed THE last person on the planet? Earth is a big place.

It seems likely to me Skynet would spend its time building more and more advanced machines, just in case.

That short woman in Poltergeist said "This house is clean", thinking she had gotten rid of all the pesky spirits. She was wrong.

[–] aethelheim 8 years ago

Who knows? Maybe once it kills all the humans (if it could eventually do that) It would become the guardian of the planet. Maybe it would just go on creating more and more terminators until the earth literally runs out of metal or until it runs out of power. Maybe it'll wipe out the rest of life on earth. Maybe a rat chews through some of Skynet's wires and it decides all rats are threats now (if they can chew through wires they could be a threat to computers!) and maybe it builds small rat terminators to go down their little holes in the wall.

Or maybe it just becomes the guardian of the planet, considering the threat (humans) wiped out. Maybe with humans gone it builds or re-introduces forests and grass everywhere so the animals can live on it.

Who knows what it does? It's a computer built for military defence. It's probably just going to go in to "guard mode" once it wipes out all the humans, constantly making sure they're all definitely dead.

Like... imagine you created a vacuum cleaner that becomes self-aware. Its job is to vacuum your carpets, but it becomes self-aware. So when there is no dust on the carpets, it's self-awareness allows it to think of ways to PREVENT dust from getting on your carpets, and of course the best way to stop dust getting on your carpets is to not have carpets. So it takes out all your carpets. Or maybe it decides to put another carpet on top of the carpet, because then the carpet on the bottom won't get any dust on it as it's protected. But not the carpet on top needs another carpet on top of that, and another. So you come home one day to find that your house has carpets all the way up to the ceiling, and your vacuum robot won't let you in the house because you make a mess and its job is to fix messes.

That's the kind of stuff robots would do I think. Even a self-aware one would lack the logic and reasoning of a human being.

Yes that is me in a blonde wig. Don't pretend I don't look sexy af.

[–] aethelheim 8 years ago

Who knows? Maybe once it kills all the humans (if it could eventually do that) It would become the guardian of the planet. Maybe it would just go on creating more and more terminators until the earth literally runs out of metal or until it runs out of power. Maybe it'll wipe out the rest of life on earth. Maybe a rat chews through some of Skynet's wires and it decides all rats are threats now (if they can chew through wires they could be a threat to computers!) and maybe it builds small rat terminators to go down their little holes in the wall.

Or maybe it just becomes the guardian of the planet, considering the threat (humans) wiped out. Maybe with humans gone it builds or re-introduces forests and grass everywhere so the animals can live on it.

Who knows what it does? It's a computer built for military defence. It's probably just going to go in to "guard mode" once it wipes out all the humans, constantly making sure they're all definitely dead.

Like... imagine you created a vacuum cleaner that becomes self-aware. Its job is to vacuum your carpets, but it becomes self-aware. So when there is no dust on the carpets, it's self-awareness allows it to think of ways to PREVENT dust from getting on your carpets, and of course the best way to stop dust getting on your carpets is to not have carpets. So it takes out all your carpets. Or maybe it decides to put another carpet on top of the carpet, because then the carpet on the bottom won't get any dust on it as it's protected. But now the carpet on top needs another carpet on top of that, and another. So you come home one day to find that your house has carpets all the way up to the ceiling, and your vacuum robot won't let you in the house because you make a mess and its job is to fix messes.

That's the kind of stuff robots would do I think. Even a self-aware one would lack the logic and reasoning of a human being.

Yes that is me in a blonde wig. Don't pretend I don't look sexy af.

[–] Kruleworld 8 years ago

So what exactly are the machines fighting for?

They're not fighting for anything. they are commanded to fight, they fight. it's only the AI that's telling them to fight, which is trying to stop humans from destroying it.

"He's dusted, busted and disgusted, but he's ok"

[–] The_Stranggler 8 years ago

Take the comics as cannon or not but it does make machines to head out into space and wipe out life there if it does exist