Science vs Science Fiction - Hal - 2001 Space Odyssey

keith99 said:

Back in that era I worked for a company that developed insurance rating software. We became involved with selling PCs to our customers as an IBM value added distributor. At first we ordered the PCs with both hard and floppy drives. We soon found we could deliver far more bang for teh buck by ordering the IBM PC with as little in the way of drives as allowed.

But every once in a while we had a customer that insisted on an IBM drive, even after we explained that IBM subcontracted the drive and the only actual difference was the little IBM logo glued on. We were pretty sure IBM did not do even the gluing in house.

Brand recognition can be powerful.

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In the face of mass ignorance of technical knowledge of how PCs actually worked, IBM became synonomous with the tactic of FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt .. a reputation apparently aided by Amdahl Corporation, amongst others).

I mean, I recall: 'at least IBM is big enough to sue if these new fangled things go belly up' ... was a common saying in consumer corporations.

jayem said:

I saw the 2001 Space Odyssey when it was released in 1968. Which was also my freshman year in college. A very cool movie for sure. But I couldn’t figure out the point of the monolith. What was that big black slab supposed to symbolize?

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Intelligence pointing the way in a sort of Directed Evolution. Of course, it's science fiction, but that was the 'meaning' in the script.

"2001 -- A Space Odyssey" was a brilliant film with powerful imagery. I vividly remember the ape-man hurling a bone into the air and as it spun in slow motion it suddenly changed into a space station with a gravity emulating rotation of it's own.

I have this weird personal conviction that God intends to drive us out into the universe. If He does, two absolute necessities will be AI and robots.

So I don't suppose God has an issue with either of them if that's His intention. He would have foreseen their development as part of His plan for the human race.

On the other hand they can be used for evil purposes. The ascerbic journalist and atheist turned Catholic, Malcolm Muggeridge, wrote somewhere that the "computer may turn out to be the most sinister invention of all time" or words to that effect.

For a literal anti-Christ to set up a one-world government, computers, the internet and satellites will play a big part. I'm one of those cranks who think the "mark of the beast" will be something like a silicon chip embedded in hand or forehead when we all live in a cashless society, possibly coupled with some sort of lethal device eg. a cyanide or botulism capsule (conjecture mind you).

God certainly allows us to fool around with dangerous toys. I watched most of a show tonight which was about the race between US, German and Japanese researchers to develop an atomic bomb. It interested me that the US was not able to develop it until the war had almost reached it's end (employing half a million people during the Manhattan Project), and only used it twice. The Germans were theoretically close to developing a nuclear reactor, which might then have allowed to them to develop the man-made element Plutonium, which is highly toxic. The Japanese were nowhere near it.

God allowed us to set up nuclear MAD with 60,000 nuclear weapons in existence in 1986. The number has since dropped to about 12,000, but there are more players and some of them are not very stable (Pakistan and North Korea being two).

I think we're in for a challenging time, when AI will be used both for destruction and survival.