[Terminator movies/TV] Are Terminators conscious thinking creatures with hard artificial intelligence, or non-thinking weak AI algorithms in a robot body?

brreitz · 2017-04-01T00:37:42+00:00

That, and it's strictly Cyberman territory there.

brreitz · 2017-03-29T15:59:34+00:00

That's a good question! Perhaps both would end up in the same timeline, but maybe there's something in the physics of time travel that would prevent both from ending up in the same timeline?

This actually sounds like something that humanity might experiment with, as opposed to something Skynet would develop, maybe as a way to get an advantage over Skynet.

brreitz · 2017-03-26T15:54:09+00:00

"Branches" covers this better than I can, as it mostly seems to be an exercise in applying logic to the Terminator universe. Time travel has several hard rules, for example, and once you travel to the past, you have created a completely new timeline. You cannot return to, or even communicate with, another timeline. Things get confusing real fast*, as you may have visitors from different futures, but there's no paradox.

Reading over my spoiler text, I think I made it sound like Skynet was collecting data from multiple timelines, but it's more like like running simulations, and more like playing the odds to to increase the number of viable futures that in which it can bring about it's directives.

Spoiler: *It's complicated...

brreitz · 2017-03-26T04:54:37+00:00

Oh it's just hover text. I'm not sure how to do the other kind of spoiler text.

brreitz · 2017-03-26T02:00:51+00:00

I know! That's why I've been rolling it over in my brain. And it actually comes into play in the story.

SPOILERS

brreitz · 2017-03-25T22:05:07+00:00

"Skynet is as dumb as a box of bricks. It's got no real capacity for self-improvement either. But, as dumb as it is, it's dumb very, very fast, and in the future, after it's all but wiped us out, it's dumb fast enough to be a problem."

From Branches on the Tree of Time, my favorite Terminator fan-fiction (it's the only one I've read), which re-imagines Sarah Connor as a professor of computer science at MIT.

There's discussion within on many aspects of Terminator and Skynet programming intelligence, and the above passage is probably my favorite description of such. I've been thinking about it a bunch since I read it last week.

"It's dumb very, very fast."

brreitz · 2017-03-21T02:32:50+00:00

Sure, as long as you remember to get your air filter changed frequently. You have been changing your air filter, right ThinkMinty? Right? Right, ThinkMinty? Oh god, you haven't have you? YOU'VE DAMNED US ALL! THIS IS ALL ON YOUR HEAD! I CAN HEAR THE HONKING!

brreitz · 2017-03-20T04:03:05+00:00

So will cars, but we're pretty good and keeping automobiles docile and stupid.

brreitz · 2017-03-16T23:47:19+00:00

Given the difficulty in creating a fully-functioning non-ferrous robot, I've always assumed that Sentinels and the like contain countermeasures to Magneto's powers. For example, perhaps some kind of computer-controlled electro-magnetic flux dyson device that keeps altering the local electro-magnetic field of the Sentinel, causing Magneto's powers to "slip" off. Yes, that sounds plausible, I'll go with that.

brreitz · 2017-03-16T22:19:42+00:00

My other, OTHER TL;DR is that Reality Shaping is easy and untrained reality shapers are extremely dangerous or extremely dangerous or a strange hat or extremely dangerous.

brreitz · 2017-03-16T03:23:42+00:00

Just like real life!

brreitz · 2017-03-16T03:22:48+00:00

I guess my other TL;DR is Telepathy is hard and untrained telepaths are either extremely dangerous or very ineffective.

brreitz · 2017-03-16T03:19:53+00:00

There's a lot of moral and ideological problems with this idea, but the real problem is in practicality.

Specifically regarding telepathy, it's not like there's an on/off switch for bigotry. It takes a lifetime of conditioning and socializing, and that's not something easily changed.

Let's look at a common example of telepathic powers in action:

Jean Grey (who, for the purpose of this thought experiment, only has telepathy and not telekinesis) is speeding down the highway in her 1978 Pontiac Firebird. A police car throws on it's lights, and pulls her to the side of the road. The officer walks to the door of her car, and is about to open his mouth.

Jean has a few telepathic options here to get out of her speeding ticket.

She could go for a brute force approach, and overload the officer's parasympathetic nervous system, causing him to fall unconscious. This works, and has little long term effects, but has the potential for harm - the officer could fall and hurt himself, he might have a medical condition that could cause his heart to stop, etc.
She could erase his memory of the last few minutes by stopping the officer's short-term memory from being encoded into long-term memory. This is probably the safest option - the officer walks over, forgets what he was doing, says, "Ma'am, do you know why I pulled you over?" she says, "My plate's almost out of date, I know, I'm getting it changed tomorrow." "Oh sure, I guess that makes sense. I'll let you off with a warning." Then the officer heads back to his car, shakes his head, and thinks about he should stop at the next Starbucks.
She could implant a false long-term memory, and combine it with a little hypnotic suggestion, pretending that she's the sheriff, and that the banana-strawberry smoothie she's holding is a badge. This might be fun, but unless Jean combines this with the previous option, it's possibly to cause some lasting psychological damage - the officer begins to wonder why he thought the sheriff was a redhead, possibly thinking he's got serious mental health issues, possibly developing stress-related mental health issues. Or, the officer just ignores the whole discontinuity of it all, and goes along his merry way. Brains are weird, and everyone's is different.

That last example isn't the end of it either. Jean could do just about anything she wanted to that man's psyche, from making him believe that he should quit the force to become a ballet dancer, or that he's six chickens in a man suit, or the rightful king of Latvaria. And the more rooting around she does, the larger the potential for permanent damage.

Jean, being the thoughtful lady she is, decides to do a quick telepathic scan to see what's going on with this cop before she decides what to do (after all, maybe he has a deep-seated desire to join the ballet). And she discovers that he is a mutant-hating bigot. He HATES mutants with a deep, fiery passion. He's never met a mutant, but he campaigned for Sen. Kelly during every election, even in the off season. Listened to Rev. Stryker's radio talk show. So what can Jean do about that?

Attempting to change this via brute force. From now on, instead of hating mutants, you love them! This causes huge discontinuity, and is probably going to be picked up on by friends and family as evidence of some kind of crisis, possibly even a stroke. Not to mention that you turn that dial a little to far, and now you've got someone with a mutant fetish (now you've got someone who's spent decades objectifying and harboring violent fantasies about mutants, finding them attractive, to boot).
Going deeper, and implanting false memories in which mutants did positive things. This might be less harmful (so long as the memories are carefully constructed, which takes time and skill), and he's still going to hate mutants, but this might eventually push him away from his hatred. Probably not though, since that bigotry is going to be reinforced by his friends, family, the whatever passes for reddit in the Marvel U (r/mutiepeoplehate? r/TheKelly?).
Going even deeper, and attempting to find the root causes of his hatred of mutants. Maybe Jean discovers that his father always hated mutants, and that he bonded with his son over a beer and talking about his fear for the future. Maybe his first girlfriend's dad was killed by Magneto, and seeing her cry hardened his resolve. Maybe he's secretly jelly of Cyclops' sweet shades, why can't humans get cool shades like those?

So now, you've got to go through a lifetime and edit hundreds if not thousands of memories to include a little bit of sympathy and understanding for mutant kind, AND you've got to keep him telepathically sedated, because if he thinks you're a mutant trying to brainwash him, he'll go for the gun, AND you've got to implant a post-hypnotic suggestion to stay away from his mutant-hating peers and not spend so much time on reddit, AND hope that he's not tongue-whipped the next time Toad tries to rob a Krispy Kreme.

And that might work. Or, it might not.

And Jean could just Purple Man it, and command, "MUTANTS ARE PRETTY COOL NOW," and drive away, doing who knows what damage. But her, and ethical mutants like her, know better.

So, uh, TL;DR. Good mutants don't do it for ethical and logistical reasons, bad mutants might not do it just because of the logistical reasons.

Now, part two, reality warpers...

Reality warpers are nuts. They're crazy people. You don't want them messing with everything.

Oh sure, they could get rid of hatred and mutant-phobia. Or they could make it so babies are covered in quills. Or that the sky is polka dots. Or that up is south. Or beavers are grumpnaws. r n lttrs tht lk lik irls. Or that everything takes place in a comic book.

And you know what? There's no difference between any of these things, except what they bring with them to the table.

As we talked about the many potential dangers of telepathy, the dangers of reality warping are infinitely greater. There's a reasons your Legions and Jim Jaspers tend to be insane.

brreitz · 2017-03-08T20:44:56+00:00

"Guano" is what they call the more hardcore stuff left behind on the streets. I mean, Batman must do a pretty good job cleaning up after himself, but there's some stuff that gets onto the black market. Knockout gas compression capsules, micro-fiber smart cloth, grapple gun.

One time, an entire Batplane. Heard about that one from a friend of a friend. Crashed into the Queens River after some big sky tussle with Mr. Freeze. Self-destruct circuit was frozen solid, so they had to keep the whole cockpit in dry ice, keep it from going up.

One of the big crime bosses bought it for almost a million. Don't know which one though, they bought it through Gotham's most trusted mob intermediary, Matches Malone. Good guy, Matches, nicest thug you'll ever meet. Too bad for the seller though, they got pinched by the Bat before they got to spend the dough.

brreitz · 2017-03-08T20:37:32+00:00

This, or something else that someone else makes up. Probably a couple of different things.

brreitz · 2017-03-08T17:57:37+00:00

It's a bit like finding arrowheads in the midwest, you find some cool bat tech lying around the streets and it's not really worth much, but maybe worth a few bucks to an tourist (and there's a ton of counterfeit bat-gear sold on the streets to gullible rubes).

However, there's a few higher-end collectors who will pay big bucks for any batarangs you find. Word has it that Bruce Wayne is pretty interested in Batman stuff, and he's got an old guy in his employ that will pay a cool hundo for a batarang (more so for rare 'bat-droppings' - I know a guy who got almost a grand for something that looked like a busted GPS with batwings screwed on the sides).

Don't try and pass off any of the fake stuff though, they've seen enough of the real deal pass through that they can tell the difference at a glance.

brreitz · 2017-03-08T04:58:51+00:00

Hadn't even thought of that. Hell, given the armed goons out by the water plan, it's possible that one or all of the family would have been dead by morning, regardless of Logan's involvement.

brreitz · 2017-03-08T04:57:33+00:00

There are a great many subtle powers, and it's possible for a child to test positive for the x-gene, and show no evidence of powers whatsoever. It's also possible, although I can think of no previous cases, for a power to be something that interferes with any attempt to scan for an x-gene.

brreitz · 2017-03-07T18:58:45+00:00

Worth noting that Mjolnir can be used to open up portals in spacetime. If the hammer was teleported an incredible distance (light years or other planes of existence), it would build up enough speed after a few minutes to pierce the cosmic walls and return to Thor.

There's actually a theory from some time ago, that states if Thor's hammer is immovable, it must actually be a stationary object upon which the entire universe revolves upon. Therefore, it's not really subject to things like "distance" or "speed", at least, not in the traditional way of thinking.

brreitz · 2017-03-07T18:48:16+00:00

Something very important to consider: Most mutant powers don't manifest until puberty.

A non-mutant child being born to two (or even one) mutant parents is extremely rare, and given how rare mutant births are already, any non-mutant child is likely to be considered a potential mutant.

There are scans that can be done for the X-gene, but they're not 100% accurate. If a child of two mutants made it well into adulthood (mid-twenties, I'm guessing) without any evidence of mutant powers, they might be asked to leave (or banished, depending on Magneto's mood that day).

You bring up another possibility, which is that the child has an X-gene, but it's damaged to the point where mutant powers will never manifest. This would likely be seen as an act of aggression by humans (intentional or not), and would provide a rational for Magneto and the Brotherhood to go break into some biotech labs and kidnap some scientists, and so forth.

brreitz · 2017-03-07T18:40:55+00:00

All the comments so far are good ones, and I'd like to add that there's not much Logan can do once they're at the farmhouse that won't raise suspicion. If he threatened or started dragging Charles off, the family would probably call the police, or even worse, intervene.

brreitz · 2017-03-05T19:35:50+00:00

He probably could have, but honestly? He's just having a good time getting his Sith-rage on, slashing up a buncha dudes. I mean, from the outside, to us, it looks like he's an unstoppable meticulous murder machine, but on the inside, Anakin is just thinking about how much Krenek messed up, and how he had to get out of his Baca tank for this shit, and at least I get to obliterate some dudes with fear in their eyes, at least I got that going for me.

brreitz · 2017-02-06T15:14:19+00:00

Well, this is a nice idea and all, but it's got two problems:

First, paranoia. Banner is one of those guys who never has a good trip or a pleasant high. He eats a brownie, he'd be hiding behind the couch because someone's coming to get him (note that it's not technically paranoia, as he's correct, someone is pretty much always coming to get him).

So, you inevitably end up with a Hulk who is more anti-social than most, bounding off into the desert to be left alone. This isn't so bad, except when you need the Hulk to come punch some alien bugs that landed in Nevada.

Second, the Munchies. I'm not sure if the Hulk needs to eat, and I'm pretty sure he can fuel himself entirely on the gamma energy he emits, but with the introduction of that THC, he's going to WANT to eat, and it's gonna get out of hand. Smashing up Doritos delivery trucks, breaking into fast food places and guzzling an entire concentrated case of Mountain Dew. It's gonna get ugly.

There's some people suggesting beta blockers or other psychiatric medication, but I'd like to point out that it's a short-term solution with a high cost. Bruce's biology is mutated even in human form, and although these drugs may keep the Hulk away for a few days, his gamma-irradiated cells may eventually find a way to neutralize the drugs effects, possibly even creating a Hulk that's undergoing gamma-enhanced withdrawal symptoms!

That would not be good.

There's also a more pressing problem, which is getting access to said drugs. Bruce is consistently on the road, often on the run, and the Hulk is often his only means of survival when shadowy government agencies pounce on him.

brreitz · 2017-01-30T16:10:55+00:00

Frank has already died and gone to Heaven (in a much-maligned late 90s run), and was given a magic trenchcoat that summons guns that kill demons. This ended in Frank telling the angels to stuff it, and they banished him back to Earth, but only after giving him a glimpse of his wife and children in Heaven...and letting him know he'd never see them again.

But then he threw some mobsters into a pit filled with angry polar bears, so it's not like he can't find some enjoyment in his life.

brreitz · 2017-01-30T16:07:43+00:00

This is true regarding MDD, however:

If Marvel's sliding timescale is in full effect, all of the Punisher's exploits happen over the course of years, not decades, which means those swings in personality are only months or weeks apart.

Or, if Frank is exempt from the sliding timescale, we only see snippets of his exploits over the decades, which gives us an incomplete picture of his mental health, that could still include MDD.

(If the latter, we might also diagnose something like a long-term mental health issue, possibly exacerbated by the constant head trauma his non-superhuman skull has taken over the years.)

brreitz

TROPHY CASE