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Next stop: your worst
technological nightmare; the rebellious omnipotent computer armed with
nuclear weapons. Yup, imagine getting up in the morning, booting
the old laptop, and ordering it to open Outlook only to be told that
it "wasn't in the mood." Actually, I get that every morning, but
that's just because I have Windows.
Colossus
was the title computer from the film Colossus: the Forbin Project
(1970), which is about a giant American computer charged with the
defence of the United States that links up with its Soviet counterpart
(which, amazingly, isn't as painfully backward as real Soviet
computers were) and form a single supercomputer that then proceeds to
methodically take over the world. Seeing as they have a total
monopoly on the superpower arsenals and are happy to nuke anyone who
gets in their way, this isn't that hard a job.
Oh, and it doesn't hurt that Colossus
is omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. That seems to have
been a pretty standard view of what computers would be like.
Some saw this as a source of oppression and terror, ala Colossus, and
others, such as Asimov, saw it as a cosy, secular substitute for God
that we could create in man's image.
