\n\tWith IBM’s “Watson” taking the stage this week to compete against the two greatest Jeopardy! champions in history this week, I thought I would take you through a look back at the iconic fictional computers from film and television that helped define the human vision of Artificial Intelligence.
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\n\tFirst up — the “forgotten” cast member of Star Trek.
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\n\tWhile not given a name and only depicted in a few scenes, the Central Computer is the central figure in the 1976 film Logan’s Run. Controlling all aspects of dystopian, pleasure-centric society including population control, it sends the main character, Logan, out on a quest to find and infiltrate de-stabilizing elements that threaten the existence of the status quo.
\n\tDr. Theopolis, voiced by character actor Eric Server, was the “Straight Man” in a comic relief pair with Twiki, a wise-cracking pint-sized robot in the 1979 TV series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. In this campy 80s depiction of the SF classic, Theo was part of a “Computer Council” which was the ruling body of 25th Century Earth
\n\tIn the 1974 SF parody Dark Star, directed by John Carpenter, ultra-powerful nuclear weapons known as “Exponential Thermostellar Bombs” are given artificial intelligence as the crew of the ships that carry them are known to go crazy and have impaired judgement from years of boredom working in the far-reaches of space. The movie comes to a dark but hilarious end when “Bomb 20” aboard the ship Dark Star decides that it is God.
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\n\tDepicted in the Film, Television and in the BBC Radio versions of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as the most powerful computer ever created by mankind, it was tasked with coming up with the answer to “Live, the Universe, and Everything.” Unfortunately, the answer would take seven million years.
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\n\tHolly, which appears as a disembodied floating head on a black background, is the central and ONLY intelligence behind the mining ship Red Dwarf, the namesake of the BBC TV series that ran between 1988 and 1999. With an IQ of 6000, he controls every aspect of the ship’s operations and likes to make frequent and humorous conversation with the ship’s crew, which consists of a curry and lager-loving two million year-old janitor, a hologram of a long-deceased navigator, a humanoid creature descended from a cat (which talks like a combination of Prince and James Brown) and a subservient android.
\n\tJoshua, or WOPR as he is more formally known, nearly brings the planet to complete annihilation because Matthew Broderick decided he’d rather play Global Thermonuclear War instead of Tic-Tac-Toe or Chess in 1983’sWarGames. Like IBM’s Watson which was taught to play Jeopardy!, Joshua was tought to learn how to play different games in order to become a true thinking machine. “SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?”
\n\tAlthough the computer never actually talks to the audience until the final Terminator film, SKYNet is the ultimate embodiment of man’s fear over intelligent machines. Whereas Colossus wishes to prevent man from destroying himself by keeping him under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation, SKYNet actually pulls the trigger, destroying
\n\tWhile the EMH isn’t the most famous AI in the Star Trek franchise — that distinction belongs to Commander Data — the “Doctor” as he is eventually called on Star Trek: Voyager is one of my favorites. Unlike Data, who is already pretty much “baked” when he starts out as a character and yearns to become a human being, the EMH was never intended to be a true crew member. By contrast, he was designed to replace the ship’s physician only in the event of an emergency and only for temporary circumstances. Due to the Voyager’s isolation in the far-reaches of space, the EMH eventually has to perform his function for several years, learning to become more and more human-like on the way.
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\n\t “Rommie” as she is more casually known, is the sentinent computer consciousness behind the Starship Andromeda Ascendant, featured on the TV series Andromeda and played by actress Lexa Doig. Portrayed as a sexy female avatar on the ship’s computer screens, Rommie controls all aspects of the ship’s operation including navigation, weaponry and life support, and in holographic and robotic form is also the prime love interest of the ship’s captain, Dylan Hunt, played by action actor Kevin Sorbo.
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\n\t\tHAL 9000’s murderous schizophrenia may have been caused by faulty programming, but the film instilled paranoia about computers and technology into an entire generation of baby boomers that persists to this very day.
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\n\t\tIn the early 1980’s, HAL did eventually redeem himself, by saving the crew and sacrificing himself in the sequel novel and the second film, setting the stage for Personal Computing and the Internet. Computers were no longer scary \u2013 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak further sealed the deal by putting a fruity logo on them, and eventually a smiley face on the boot-up screen.
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\n\t\tEven H.A.L. \u201cOne step ahead of I.B.M.\u201d could be a friend, and a tool that could be harnessed by regular people, not just pasty-faced white-collared grosgrain pocket-protected computer scientists locked in some huge room with giant humming pieces of machinery and banks of winking and blinking lights.
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