alt Hacker News(No spoilers)
I had 2 main fridge-logic issues which made it very difficult for me to suspend disbelief and limited my enjoyment of the film:
First: Colossus' is only able to implement its plan because the US, and US-aligned nuclear powers, agree to subordinate their entire nuclear arsenals to Colossus' full-authority defence control, with no means of overriding it; and with its computing hardware sealed in an impenetrable fortress (no maintenance access?).
Second: Colossus' plan - and its ultimate actions - assume everyone else on earth is a nuclear-disarmed-rational-actor, all solely interested in not-dying-at-Colossus's-hand - which is an unworkable assumption.
Unfortunately, the story is driven by these 2 points - without either then the film's story would just be yet-another-cliché-movie where the plucky humans beat the advanced AI overlord, the end.
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I still like _Colossus_ because it's "different" to all the other 20th century films with an AI character (c.f. tripe like Will Smith's _I, Robot_ or the Matrix sequels).
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Point #1 might seem unrealistic, but it's exactly how IT security of most companies operate now: "We are concerned about malware so we give full control of our systems to CrowdStrike". That is, having a single point of failure is shocking common.
> Second: Colossus' plan - and its ultimate actions - assume everyone else on earth is a nuclear-disarmed-rational-actor
The plan would still work. Colossus couldn’t be destroyed with nuclear weapons and would retaliate against any attack. It could force compliance of conventional forces as well, and force automation on them, also force populations to rearm it.
In the end, the population would appreciate the eradication of poverty, hunger, disease, and the surplus from not maintaining military capabilities. Colossus could afford democratic institutions while acting as a guard rail against humanity’s worst impulses.
> difficult for me to suspend disbelief
Were you able to suspend your disbelief when watching Idiocracy [1], either in the year of its release or in the subsequent decades? (^;
You are rational. There are plenty of moments where doing the rational thing would end the story.
You are not the president of the United States. That is Donald Trump.
Do you see how the plot is consistent?
Both of these are better addressed in the books. It was an intentional choice to have no override and no maintenance access. And book 2, Colossus and the Crab, actually spends a bunch of time with Colossus testing the rationality of various humans.