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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2377 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for April 14, 2023

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I rewatched the first two terminators in honor of our new overlords, and I really wished they'd focused on Skynet instead of its dumb agents. There is a massive void in pop culture in the shape of a modern 1984 that exploits our AI fears and mercilessly twists that knife. The Matrix was also too fixated on the physical struggle despite taking place... in the matrix.

I want to see humanity's strongest put up against a pan-omni AI God, watch them get outplayed in slow motion at every turn, baited into having some hope, before realizing they were getting hustled, and end buck-broken. None of that limpwristed shit like Ex Machina.

Terminator: Genisys was the monkey paw version of that film, and at its release was by far the worst Terminator film, by a very large margin. And Terminator 3 wasn't even particularly good. I don't know if that's changed now with Dark Fate, since I didn't watch that one.

Personally, I think the Terminator franchise ought to remain as is, rather than exploring the origin and takeover of Skynet. The original film was a slasher horror film with the AI takeover time travel premise as almost just a framing device, and the 2nd film was almost a remake of the 1st film in that same basic structure. They succeeded because the execution of the horror and action scenes were incredibly good, and the emotional plot and character arcs were good as well. The scifi premise wasn't there to be taken seriously or explored in depth.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was an excellent in-depth look at the immanence of SAGI takeover. The protagonists were scared shitless about SAGI foom not because the particular SAGI was military in origin, but because any SAGI who foomed could become Skynet with the right access.

Dark Fate was a delight to me because it showed that Skynet wasn’t the only threat; in a universe where time travel is possible, any anti-human super artificial general intelligence just needs enough forward time to figure out how to gain backward time.

The scifi premise wasn't there to be taken seriously or explored in depth.

Yes. But also you could read some point about stable time loops and their inevitability once they start. That's by accident deeper than what was probably intended.

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