Tag Archives: Terminator

Terminator Genisys – Reinventing the Robot?

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James Cameron’s first two Terminator films continue to be regarded as two of the best examples of action/sci-fi storytelling of all time. The sequels that followed, despite being supplied with sufficient star power and formed around a familiar mythology, failed to generate the same critical acclaim or fervor from fanboy audiences. This year’s Terminator Genysis, which opened last month, has already been cited as the first picture in a new stand alone trilogy – Terminator 2 (working title) is set for release on May 19, 2017 and Terminator 3 (also working title) has a release date planned as far ahead as June 29, 2018.

Lightning rarely strikes in the same place twice, let alone 4, or even 5 times successively. Despite this, studios have nowadays become accustomed to dropping buckets of money on the umpteenth iteration of the same worn-out tale – the Terminator franchise being a prime example. Before the most recent film even hit theaters, James Cameron went on record saying that Terminator Genisys is the “real” third Terminator film, effectively writing off the other two features as non-canon. Though Cameron had no direct involvement in the production or filming of Genisys, his endorsement hinted at its potential to re-inject some life into the storyline. But even with the help of the first T-800 himself (the inimitable Arnold Schwarzenegger), it lacked the strength to assume responsibility for yet another reprisal.

Unable to participate in the fourth film Terminator Salvation due to his political pursuits, the former California governor, now 67, quickly slipped back into his former role as cinematic cyborg. The Genysis screenplay explains why the T-800 ages like humans do, using a life-size CGI model of a 37-year old Arnold to represent him as the younger robot from 1984’s original The Terminator. Schwarzenegger had to train twice as hard to get back to the same weight he was in 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgement Day, as Genysis features T-800s from all three different time periods. The overall plot is mired in temporal paradox, as Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese battle both a “killer” app and the nefarious satellite internet-based plague that is Skynet while simultaneously attempting to change the outcome of life in a parallel universe. Too convoluted for casual viewers and too much of a stretch for anyone else who has grown up loving the series, appreciating Genysis requires a full reimagining of time as a linear construct.

After the announcement of the arrival of another Terminator film hit the Internet, comment trolls immediately questioned the need for it —  even the most devout fans seemed to agree that Salvation should have effectively closed out the saga. Studios pressed ahead anyways, and Genysis went on to generate relatively lukewarm box office numbers alongside mixed critical reviews. One of the film’s harshest critics, Grantland’s Wesley Morris offered some particularly scathing insight, saying, “It’s neither a surprising work of pop art nor an entertaining piece of crap.” Within the Terminator universe created by Cameron, this film stands out not necessarily for its explicit awfulness, as it is arguably a “better” movie than 2003’s T3 or 2009’s Salvation. However, treading on overly familiar ground, it does little more than dig a deeper grave for the once-great story of robotic apocalypse.

Paramount Studio’s premature hopes for the franchise’s longevity (evidenced by their early announcements of both additional sequels) may be dashed, as it hasn’t truly seen success since the mid-’90s and for many, the lackluster Genisys is just further proof that it’s best years are over. Unfortunately, film studios seem to pay less and less attention to the creation of uniquely compelling characters and plots. This year’s release of Mad Max: Fury Road and Jurassic World, as well as the upcoming Star Wars sequels and the initiation of projects like the all-female Ghostbusters only serve to indicate Hollywood’s increased reliance on the exploitation of familiar, formerly-glorious, success stories. Paramount has suggested that if the film fails overseas (it has an August 23th release date in China) plans may be scrapped for the 2017 and 2018’s Terminator pictures. A disinterested Asian audience might be enough to finally convince executives that there is an important distinction between giving up and knowing when you’ve had enough.

Good films don’t necessarily need critical support, but they do need to tap into something primal within the hearts of audience members. In a world where robots are achieving an ever more powerful presence in our day-to-day life, there’s no reason why the stories we write about them should fail to excite. If Paramount does choose to carry out plans for two additional sequels they would do well to abandon the Terminators completely – today’s technology is surely enough to inspire a new storyline, full of the imaginations and intrigue which made the first two films so great.

Chess for Androids and Evil Geniuses

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Prime Mover vs. Grandmaster

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David Levy won the Scottish Chess Championship in 1968 and then wagered the world no computer could beat him. “The idea of an electronic world champion,” he boasted, “belongs only in the pages of a science fiction book.”

The machines rallied against him, but Chaos, Ribbit, MacHack, even the Soviets’ reigning computer champ, Kaissa, were no match for a human mind. When Levy defeated Northwestern University’s Chess 4.7 (he’d beat 4.5 the year before), he declared: “my opponent in this match was very, very much stronger than I had thought possible when I started the bet. Now nothing would surprise me (very much).”

Levy upped the bet with a $1,000. Omni Magazine threw in another $4,000 , and Deep Thought scooped it up in 1989.  When Garry Kasparov faced the upgrade Deep Blue, Levy predicted the grandmaster would sweep the match 6-0. “I’m positive,” said Levy, “I’d stake my life on it.”

Kasparov won 4-2, then lost the rematch to the first electronic world champion. Kasparov likened the computer’s countermoves to the hand of God: “I met something that I couldn’t explain. People turn to religion to explain things like that.”

In Terminator mythology, this is how the world ends. Boot up the chess-playing Turk and a few inevitable moves later Skynet is nuking the planet. But back in 1968, chess was still just a game. Dr. Doom responded to Levy’s challenge with Prime Mover, a program that used agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as pawns. When Doom moved onto other nefarious activities, the bored Prime Mover rocketed out of Doom’s Latverian castle to seek players in outer space. Grandmaster, a God-like “galactic gambling addict,” responded for a three-game match in Giant-Size Defenders No. 3 (which I plucked off of a rotating, 7-Eleven comic stand when I was nine).

“Data-analysis-indicates-you-will-be-defeated,” boasts the machine.

“Your analysis is in error then, my worthy opponent,” Grandmaster retorts.

“Negative. I-am-the-Prime-Mover. Error-is-impossible. All-probability-permutations-E/M/G-Earth-Mastery-Game-cross-checked. In-each-you-lose.”

Oh, that’s right, they’re playing for—what else?—world domination. Prime Mover promised each of his alien chessmen a “governorship of some sector of the earth,” while Grandmaster wants a “permanent stable of gladiators” selectively bred from Earth’s superpowered heroes.

The crew of the starship Enterprise faced a similar fate against some other galactic gambling addicts in 1968 too. The Gamesters of Triskelion were just glowing colored brains on tiny pedestals, but they couldn’t resist Kirk’s winner-take-all wager. Combatants fought with Vulcan lirpas, but all those three-dimensional chess games Kirk played against Spock must have helped too.

In fact, Gene Roddenberry wrote his writing staff a 1968 memo demanding even more chess: “Let’s also get back to more of the colorful aspects of our Vulcan. For example — the continuing joke of his chess games with Kirk in which Spock invariably loses because of Kirk’s humanly illogical moves. Spock guesses correctly what Kirk should do but Kirk invariably makes a ‘wrong’ move which defeats Spock.”

Kirk vs. Spock chess

Roddenberry’s game analysis reveals two things: 1) the creator of Star Trek didn’t play much chess, and 2) emotionless logic scares people. Every third episode, Kirk destroys a planet-enslaving supercomputer, usually by revealing its illogic and so causing it to self-destruct. Prime Mover fares no better when the Grandmaster’s Defenders win 2 of their 3 matches.

“This-cannot-be. You-cheated-you-cheated-you-cheated-you-SQUORK-”

Prime Mover knocks over the chessboard, final evidence of humanly illogical emotion conquering even a machine “programmed never lo lose.”
 

Cybermen vs. Dr. Who chess

 
According to Dr. Who lore, Time Lords invented chess, but when the Doctor plays a game against the upgraded Cybermen, emotion is his weakness too. Will he save his companions (those nefarious robots have linked their lives to each playing piece) or obey the dictates of inhuman logic and sacrifice individual lives to win the larger game? Spock always sides with logic and loses, but Neil Gaiman (he wrote the episode “Nightmare in Silver”) knows more about chess than Roddenberry. The sentimental Doctor has only one choice.

He cheats.

But Ron Weasley doesn’t have that option in the first Harry Potter novel. He, Hermione, and Harry take the places of “a knight, a bishop, and a castle” in order to cross a life-sized chessboard. When a piece is lost, its opponent “smashed him to the floor and dragged him off the board, where he lay quite still, facedown” (which is slightly better than being smashed to pebbles in the film version). Eventually Ron relies on his inner Spock-like inhumanness to win: “it’s the only way . . . I’ve got to be taken.”

“NO!” Harry and Hermione shouted.

“That’s chess!” snapped Ron. “You’ve got to make some sacrifices!”
 

Harry vs. Ron chess

 
It’s a hard lesson to learn. My son is upstairs right now scribbling inside the booklet of chess puzzles his tutor assigned him. Most require some sort of counter-intuitive sacrifice, a large piece in exchange for not a piece of greater or even equal value but a game-winning position. Chess legend Paul Morphy designed one of the most famous puzzles when he was ten. Cameron wears it on a t-shirt. If you let go of your emotional attachment to your rook, your piddly little pawn will step up and win the game.

Cameron asked for lessons after winning his fifth K-8 chess tournament. His first teacher was a young guy and former national scholastic champ who focused on openings. His current is white-bearded and (Cameron noted) prefers endgames. When my wife dropped Cameron off for his first lesson, she wasn’t sure she should leave her son in such an eccentrically unkempt house, down such an isolated, wooded side road, with a stranger whose social awkwardness could be inching toward serial killer.

He and Cam hit it off fine. Chess was their bridge, the social glue. Cam’s sax teacher recommended the guy—which also explained the otherwise creepily long fingernails. He plays classical guitar. Add mathematics and hieroglyphics to his areas of expertise, and you’ve got a contender for world champ of reclusive super-geniuses.

Did Roddenberry fear all those world-dominating supercomputers for the same reasons? When he rebooted Star Trek for Next Generation, he replaced his Vulcan with an android. Geniuses are “evil” because all that computer-like intellect must require some counter-intuitive sacrifice, a pummeling of their wrong-headed but human-hearted errors. Terminator premiered during the mid-80s techno craze, when even the eminently analog Neil Young and Jethro Tull sacrificed their signature sounds for the robotic lure of drum machines and vocoders. It was like Skynet had already won.

Cameron’s chess coach wants him to think like a machine too. He should process chess patterns like his mother’s face, he says. You don’t consciously analyze features until deducing an overall identity. Looking and recognizing are simultaneous.  The simile (Mom = checkmate) may sound a bit Vulcan, but the idea is true of any learned skills. Reading these word patterns requires no conscious effort either.

But I’m terrible at chess patterns. Chess Titans, the program that came with the laptop I’m typing on, tells me I’ve won only 32% of the Level 5 games I’ve played against it. My stats halved to 15% and then 8% when I ventured higher. Apparently Kasparov and his cronies have developed “anti-computer” tactics to deal with such Prime Movers, but my human illogic loses again and again. Perhaps a purely logical creature would click down to Level 4 and reap a 64% success rate. But my dogged humanity keeps me plugging away.

Humans are gluttons for punishment. We can’t help it. We’re addicts for hard-won lessons. Meanwhile, one Ron Weasley on mechanical horseback can still pummel me to pebbles. Cameron can too. But not consistently. Our current human grandmasters are holding their Skynet offspring at a draw too. The highly human Magnus Carlson (he’s twenty-two and models shirtless in fashion magazines) won the World Championship last week. His “unpredictable style of play,” one ad brags, “embodies the spirit of unconventional thinking.” And that’s all it takes to save humanity.
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Magnus shirtless

The Terminator Time Travels to Cambridge University to Study Nietzsche and Plot the End of the World

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Dear Centre for the Study of Existential Risk,

It’s rare to find folks willing to look sillier than me (an English professor who takes seriously the study of superheroes). Your hosting institution (Cambridge) dwarfs my tiny liberal arts college, and your collective degrees (Philosophy, Cosmology & Astrophysics, Theoretical Physics) and CV (dozens of books, hundreds of essays, and, oh yeah, Skype) makes me look like an under-achieving high schooler—which I was when the scifi classic The Terminator was released in 1984.

The Terminator

And yet it’s you, not me, taking James Cameron’s robot holocaust seriously. Or, as you urge: “stop treating intelligent machines as the stuff of science fiction, and start thinking of them as a part of the reality that we or our descendants may actually confront.”

So, to clarify, by “existential risk,” you don’t mean the soul-wrenching ennui kind. We’re talking the extinction of the human race. So Bravo. With all the press drones are getting lately, those hovering Skynet bombers don’t look so farfetched anymore.

Drones

Your website went online this winter, and to help the cause, I enlisted my book club to peruse the introductory links of articles and lectures on your “Resources & reading” page. It’s good stuff, but I think you should expand the list a bit. It’s all written from the 21st century. And yet the century you seem most aligned with is the 19th.

I know, barring some steampunk time travel plot, it’s unlikely the Victorians are going to invent the Matrix. But reading your admonitory essays, I sense you’ve set the controls on your own time machine in the wrong direction. It was H.G. Wells who warned in 1891 of the “Coming Beast,” “some now humble creature” that “Nature is, in unsuspected obscurity, equipping . . . with wider possibilities of appetite, endurance, or destruction, to rise in the fullness of time and sweep homo away.” Your stuff of science fiction isn’t William Gibson’s but Mary Shelley’s. The author of Frankenstein warned in 1818 that “a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth, who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition precarious and full of terror.”

early Frankenstein illustration

Although today’s lowly machines pose no real competitive threat (it’s still easier to teach my sixteen-year-old daughter how to drive a car), your A.-I.-dominated future simmers with similar anxiety: “Would we be humans surviving (or not) in an environment in which superior machine intelligences had taken the reins, to speak?” As early as 2030, you prophesize “life as we know it getting replaced by more advanced life,” asking whether we should view “the future beings as our descendants or our conquerors.”

Either answer is a product of the same, oddly applied paradigm: Evolution.

Why do you talk about technology as a species?

Darwin quietly co-authors much of your analysis: “we risk yielding control over the planet to intelligences that are simply indifferent to us . . . just ask gorillas how it feels to compete for resources with the most intelligent species – the reason they are going extinct is not (on the whole) because humans are actively hostile towards them, but because we control the environment in ways that are detrimental to their continuing survival.”Natural selection is an allegory, yet you posit literally that our “most powerful 21st-century technologies – robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech – are threatening to make humans an endangered species.”

I’m not arguing that these technologies are not as potentially harmful as you suggest. But talking about those potentials in Darwinistic terms (while viscerally effective) drags some unintended and unacknowledged baggage into the conversation. To express your fears, you stumble into the rhetoric of miscegenation and eugenics.

To borrow a postcolonial term, you talk about A.I. as if it’s a racial other, the nonhuman flipside of your us-them dichotomy. You worry “how we can best coexist with them,” alarmed because there’s “no reason to think that intelligent machines would share our values.” You describe technological enhancement as a slippery slope that could jeopardize human purity. You present the possibility that we are “going to become robots or fuse with robots.” Our seemingly harmless smartphones could lead to smart glasses and then brain implants, ending with humans “merging with super-intelligent computers.” Moreover, “Even if we humans nominally merge with such machines, we might have no guarantees whatsoever about the ultimate outcome, making it feel less like a merger and more like a hostile corporate takeover.” As result, “our humanity may well be lost.”

In other words, those dirty, mudblood cyborgs want to destroy our way of life.

Once we allow machines to fornicate with our women, their half-breed offspring could become “in some sense entirely posthuman.” Even if they think of themselves “as descendants of humans,” these new robo-mongrels may not share our goals (“love, happiness”) and may look down at us as indifferently as we regard “bugs on the windscreen.”

“Posthuman” sounds futuristic, but it’s another 19th century throwback. Before George Bernard Shaw rendered “Ubermensch” as “Superman,” Nietzsche’s first translator went with “beyond-man.” “Posthuman” is an equally apt fit.

When you warn us not to fall victim to the “comforting” thought that these future species will be “just like us, but smarter,” do you know you’re paraphrasing Shaw? He declared in 1903 that “contemporary Man” will “make no objection to the production of a race of [Supermen], because he will imagine them, not as true Supermen, but as himself endowed with infinite brains.” Shaw, like you, argued that the Superman will not share our human values: he “will snap his superfingers at all Man’s present trumpery ideals of right, duty, honor, justice, religion, even decency, and accept moral obligations beyond present human endurance.”

Shaw, oddly, thought this was a good thing. He, like Wells, believed in scientific breeding, the brave new thing that, like the fledgling technologies you envision, promised to transform the human race into something superior. It didn’t. But Nazi Germany gave it their best shot.

You quote the wrong line from Nietzsche (“The truth that science seeks can certainly be considered a dangerous substitute for God if it is likely to lead to our extinction”). Add Also Spake Zarathustra to your “Resources & reading” instead. Zarathustra advocates for the future you most fear, one in which “Man is something that is to be surpassed,” and so we bring about our end by creating the race that replaces us. “What is the ape to man?” asks Zarathustra, “A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of shame.”

Sounds like an existential risk to me.

And that’s the problem. In an attempt to map our future, you’re stumbling down the abandoned ant trails of our ugliest pasts. I think we can agree it’s a bad thing to accidentally conjure the specters of scientific racism and Adolf Hitler, but if your concerns are right, the problem is significantly bigger. We’re barreling blindly into territory that needs to be charted. So, yes, please start charting, but remember, the more your 21st century resembles the 19th, the more likely you’re getting everything wrong.