There’s an image that routinely goes around the internet, usually after some obnoxious chud suggests that teachers should be replaced with AI, that says, “A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” It’s a practical piece of advice attributed to IBM training material from 1979, but one has to wonder if its writer was inspired by a generation of science fiction that warned of consequences far worse than lawsuits if computers were put in charge.
One early classic of the genre, the clunkily titled Colossus: The Forbin Project, just celebrated its 45th anniversary. Something of a cross between Dr. Strangelove, WarGames, and a Terminator prequel, it’s hopelessly dated in some places yet terrifyingly relevant in others, especially as our generation’s most obnoxious minds draft error-riddled termination letters in ChatGPT.
