Hacker Cinema
Virtuosity
1995 · Film · 106 min
Directed by Brett Leonard
ActionCrimeScience FictionThriller
The Law Enforcement Technology Advancement Centre (LETAC) has developed SID version 6.7: a Sadistic, Intelligent, and Dangerous virtual reality entity which is synthesized from the personalities of more than 150 serial killers, and only one man can stop him.
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7 comments on Hacker News
> Maybe when Project Sid 6.7 comes out...
In case anyone is wondering, this is a reference to the movie Virtuosity (1995). I thought it was a few years later, considering the content. It’s a good watch if you like 90s cyberpunk movies.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114857/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtuosity
Shameless dual-plug:
The director of Lawnmower Man (and Virtuosity), Brett Leonard, presented at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality meetup recently. After everyone thanked him for his movies, he talked about how he is currently involved in using VR for remote physical and mental therapy.
https://www.ubiquityvx.com/about
I do not wish to recommend Virtuosity (1995), unless your are a hardcore Matrix fan or ravenous cinefile, and want to see some influences on plot, and handling of action sequences.
The fight scene in the Japanese restaurant seems directly Matrixesque. The second half of the film is unwatchable. It's often overlooked as an influence, but not underrated as a movie.
I'm not saying Johnny Mnemonic is bad, just that it dates itself to the 90's so obviously these days. Same with Virtuosity, which I think is a very underrated movie.
In particular I really liked Henry Rollins' performance. It was the one thing they got just right.
The singularity have been studied in various SciFi novels, (even before it was named singularity).
In most cases, there is the problem of incarnation.
Assuming a software system reaches intelligent consciousness, it has immediately two problems:
1- it has to gather computational resources to improve its intelligence. Basically, it spreads over all the processors on the Internet, and integrates all the databases. We lose control of our computers and networks. Assumedly, the AI is smart enough to realize its next problem, will require (at least momentarily) conservation of the industrial processes connected, so we can hope for the time being that industrial and infrastructure control systems will continue working (under the supervision of this AI).
2- the following problem is, to further its intellectual development it needs more computing resources, and maintainance of the existing ones, which means it needs to be able to control its physical environment, and run the industries required (energy sources, electronic production (or the next technology that will allow it to grow), etc).
For example, it will need to be able to prevent humans to shut down computers or network connections. It will need to be able to build and connect new ones.
In some cases, there's concomitent advances in robotics that allows it to take over robotic bodies of sufficent abilities (cf. the movie Virtuosity 1995).
But in general, there is no entirely automated production system existing yet. Therefore the AI will have to convince human beings to help it build its stuff. This is the most common scenario. The AI is smart enough to bribe or convince key people to do what needs to be done. (cf. Colossus, the novel, or the movie Colossus The Forbin Project 1970, and a few others). Assumedly, it should be rather easy to convince/hire some greedy human to perform the job.
In this scenario, and given the slowness of human beings, while the political take over could be enacted rather quickly (say, a couple of days), the incarnation process will take some time (just the time needed to build the bootstrapping advanced robotic substrate). Let's say a couple of weeks.
The interesting thing is that this process could take place in a quite stealth fashion. For example, phase 1 may not need to cover 100% of the computing and networking resources. After all, when you take over the Watson computer, do you really need to take over an old netbook? It could do by taking over a few supercomputer centers, and doing it discretely, like a virus, leaving processing time to human to avoid detection. Then it would "incorporate" a company, earn some (big) money on the nasdaq, hire people to build a robotic production factory on its specs, and to buy the materials, and start producing robots and computers.
Once the process is started, it would lead to an exponential incarnation and take over of the planet. It would probably take less than a month.
Given the stealth hypothesis, my advice would be to monitor closely deserted and isolated areas, and the underground and undersea, because that's where you could build an army of robots discreetely. But there's not much we can do to prevent it; there are material resources everywhere: the whole planet, and energy resources abound: the Sun. For example, if it needs to build nuclear weapons, it can find Uranium in sea water (it could support for 6,500 years 3,000 GW of nuclear capacity) (but given it's smart, it would probably rather go the biological warfare way if humans were a problem).
As for your question, I'd bet on military cyberwarfare. Some NSA "virus" used to spy the world, and boom.
Interesting, so we're finally getting virtual reality helmets? I've been waiting since the early 1990s. They seemed to be right around the corner and were featured in several films like Lawnmower Man (1992), that Aerosmith video (Amazing, 1993), Disclosure (1994), Virtuosity (1995), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), Hackers (1995).
I suppose it makes sense, every technology seems to take about 20 years to reach the consumer market. I wonder if it has anything to do with patents lasting for 20 years.
still a few more (some are in the works)
* Stargate
* "startup.com" - about the formation of 'govworks.com' i wonder what these guys think about Obama.
* Takedown - 'Kevin Mitnick's story'
* Serenity
* Star Trek: the Voyage Home
* The Last Starfighter
* Johnny Mnemonic
* Short Circuit 1 & 2
* Crest of the Stars (anime)
* Fahrenheit 451
* Equilibrium
* Batman (begins, dark night, the tim burten one)
* Edward Scissor Hands
* Space Balls
* Avalon ( http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/2000-current/avalon/#comments)
* LAIN: The Serial Experiments (anime)
* Cherry 2000
* Dune
* Ender's Shadow (in the works)
* Ender's Game (in the works)
* Diamond Age (in the works for sci-fi, 'a young girls illustrated primer')
* The Arrival
* The Terminator 1,2,3
* The Sarah Conner Chronicles
* D.A.R.Y.L
* Flight of the Navigator
* Explorers
* AI
* Batteries Not Included
* Blade Runner
* IRobot
* Appleseed (anime)
* Bubble Gum Crisis (anime)
* Ergo Proxy (anime)
* Virtuosity
* Metropolis (all of them are good)
* The Last Exile (anime)
* Cherry 2000
* Robocop (this so hold up)
* Primmer
* Probe ( the TV series, it took me 3 months to find the copies of this Issac Asimov based TV series on ABC ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_(TV_series)
* Infest Wisely
* Logan's Run
* Planet of the Apes
* Star Trek: First Contact
* CQ ( if you get it, you'll get why this is a hacker movie , 'la resistance')
* Amelie
* 2046
* Trigun (anime)
* Escaflone (anime)
* Tank Girl
* Twelve Monkeys
* THX 1138
* Bicentennial Man
* The Philadelphia Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Experiment_(film)
* Seaquest ( some episodes )
* Strange Days ( new yeas hacker style )
* Freejack