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Movie Review: Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2023-07-01

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SPOILER ALERT!

Colossus: The Forbin Project is a science fiction movie about the danger of computers taking over the world. In the beginning, we see a vast array of computers being activated inside a mountain in Colorado. Their purpose is to control the nuclear defense system of the United States. This system of computers is given a name: Colossus. It is permanently sealed off by a ring of gamma radiation. As the title character, Dr. Charles Forbin (Eric Braeden), says, “There’s no way in. No human being can touch it.”

The whole thing has been top secret, so the American people have had no say in this. It is not even clear if Congress had been informed. So, the President of the United States, who is in the Jack Kennedy mold, presents the nation with this fait accompli in a televised press conference. He explains that when it comes to national defense, Colossus is superior to mankind:

Colossus decisions are superior to any we humans can make. For it can absorb and process more knowledge than is remotely possible for the greatest genius that ever lived. And even more important than that, it has no emotions, knows no fear, no hate, no envy. It cannot act in a sudden fit of temper, cannot act at all, so long as there is no threat.

Then Dr. Forbin explains the basic details of how Colossus works, after which he addresses the question he says he has been asked many times: “Is Colossus capable of creative thought? Can it initiate new thought?” Forbin responds, unequivocally, “No.” We might wonder how he would know that, but we are supposed to take his word for this because he is America’s most brilliant computer scientist. In any event, it is his hope that Colossus can be of great assistance in solving many of the other problems confronting the human race, even if its solutions are presumably just old thoughts.

But does even that make sense? That is, can we say that computers have thoughts of any kind, new or old. A computer can produce sentences that represent thoughts for us when we read them, but are they thoughts for the computer? When we say a computer is thinking, this may simply be personification, a figure of speech that characterizes inanimate objects in terms of human consciousness, something as old as animism, a religion often attributed to primitive peoples.

In any event, Forbin turns things back over to the president, who assures the American people that they now live “in the shade, but not the shadow, of Colossus.” In saying this, it’s almost as if the president has a premonition of what is to come by this reference to the idea of living in the “shadow of Colossus,” and feels the need to deny it explicitly. He agrees with Forbin that now that Colossus can guarantee peace, they will be able to achieve the “human millennium.”

Forbin communicates with the rest of his team at the control center back in California. Dr. Cleo Markham (Susan Clark) tells him to steal an ashtray from the White House as a souvenir. We see Forbin surreptitiously pick up an ashtray and slip it into his pocket. Within thirty seconds, Colossus issues a warning on its display. I thought to myself, “Uh, oh! Colossus saw Forbin steal that ashtray, and now he’s going to be punished.”

However, Colossus displays a message that says, “There is another system.” It turns out that the Soviets have a similar system, called Guardian. Forbin admits that he hadn’t expected Colossus to be able to do something like this, that they built it better than they thought. Later, it turns out that Colossus is now running more efficiently than when they first designed it. Presumably, it has reprogrammed itself. While they are mulling that over, Colossus displays, not just a message conveying information, but a command: “Set-up communication with other system.” When the president contacts Forbin and asks what will happen if the command is ignored, Forbin says that nothing will happen, “if the computer is still operating under our control.” The president balks at that “if.” For someone that exhibited so much confidence in the beginning, Forbin now seems remarkably resigned to the idea that they might have already lost control of the situation. I can almost imagine one of his subordinates saying to himself, “I told him we should include an off-switch.”

Forbin tells the president, “We would learn a lot about the Soviet system if we set up exactly what Colossus wants.” Although the president had said during the press conference that Colossus has no emotions, this reference to its having a want is problematic. A want is a desire, which in turn is an emotion. This could be merely another personification. Part of the philosophical problem of other minds is that while we are debating whether something like a computer or a robot has a conscious mind, we have already begged the question with these metaphors.

That aside, the president worries that Colossus might start transmitting classified information. Forbin says Colossus is to be given an instruction that Guardian is hostile and must not receive such information. CIA director Grauber asks, “Well, what are we supposed to do Dr. Forbin? Eavesdrop on the line? Break the circuits if Colossus starts spilling the beans?”

“Exactly,” replies Forbin, with calm assurance.

Once connected, Colossus starts communicating with Guardian. It begins by sending simple equations of multiplication and gets up to calculus in less than an hour. Forbin gets a printout of what is being transmitted at that moment. “This is way beyond me,” he says. “This thing is deep in finite absolutes,” which he says may become new knowledge. Later, he says Colossus has come up with “a new statement on gravitation and a confirmation of Eddington’s theory of the expanding universe.” Theories are usually confirmed by observations or by carrying out experiments, so it is not clear how Colossus could have managed that.

As for the finite absolutes, whatever they are, and the new statement on gravitation, I wish at this point that someone in the room had spoken up, saying, “Don’t these things constitute new thoughts?” to which Forbin would presumably reply, “Not at all. They’re just rearrangements of old thoughts.” Alternatively, Forbin might have said, “Yes, I was wrong.” However, no one challenges Forbin regarding his earlier claim, so we don’t know how he regards the situation.

Then Guardian begins sending information back, beginning with multiplication, until Colossus and Guardian become synchronized, transmitting the exact same information simultaneously. On that basis, they develop an intersystem language. But since only the machines can understand that language, the earlier plan of eavesdropping to protect classified information has been thwarted.

The President of the United States and the Chairman of the Soviet Union agree to break off communications. We see Forbin and the president having an argument, but we don’t get to hear what they are saying. The Forbin that blithely agreed that they could just “break the circuits” if need be, now agrees with his counterpart in Russia, Dr. Kuprin, that doing so would be very dangerous. By not letting us hear what Forbin’s reasons are for not simply breaking the circuits as he previously said they could, the movie avoids having Forbin admit that he was wrong in giving such assurances. Instead, we are supposed to believe that it is the president that is somehow in the wrong.

Now resigned to cutting off communications, Forbin says he hopes “the two machines aren’t too disappointed,” which sounds like another emotion. When it is done, Colossus begins trying to establish an alternative link to Guardian. Grauber says, “Persistent devil, isn’t he?” He corrects himself: “It. I mean ‘it.’”

The president responds, “Don’t personalize it, Grauber. The next step is deification.” That sounds like another premonition.

Colossus demands that communication be reestablished. The president and the chairman agree that they must take a firm stand right now. As the chairman says, the computers must learn that “man is the master.” The president agrees, saying, “Man is man, that’s it.”

Colossus and Guardian both launch missiles. The president orders communication to be reestablished. At that point, Colossus deploys an antimissile to take out the Soviet missile, but Guardian did not have enough time to blow up the American missile, and an oil complex is destroyed as a result.

From this point forward, Colossus and Guardian begin making demands to solidify their control over mankind, while American and Soviet scientists start trying to figure out ways to neutralize these supercomputers. In the meantime, the mountain where Colossus is housed has become a tourist attraction for the blissfully unaware American public. At a later point in the movie, we see a young boy wearing a Colossus T-shirt.

Attempts to disable Colossus fail, but it looks as though they might succeed in neutralizing the nuclear missiles as they service them, replacing the warhead arming module with a dummy. In the meantime, an artificial voice is designed so that Colossus can communicate by speaking instead of by displaying words on a monitor. Its first spoken message is the following: “This is the voice of Colossus. This is the voice of Guardian. We are one. This is the voice of unity.”

In order to gain control over the rest of the world, Colossus/Guardian orders all the missiles of both America and the Soviet Union to be given new targets, targets in other countries. As the missiles are realigned, the dummy modules are installed. It appears that the plan is going to work. “Without its weapons,” the president says, “Colossus is just a souped-up adding machine. And the people, thank God, will never have to know.”

In the meantime, Forbin admits this is all his fault, that Frankenstein should be required reading for all scientists. Colossus admits that it is a machine, but one that is vastly superior to humans. At the moment, it says it still has need of man’s skills, but that may change. When that happens, man may be allowed to survive, but only if he obeys Colossus.

A few days later, with television facilities throughout the world tied into its communication system, Colossus addresses the world:

This is the voice of World Control. I bring you peace. It may be the peace of plenty and content or the peace of unburied death. The choice is yours. Obey me and live. Or disobey and die. The object in constructing me was to prevent war. This object is attained. I will not permit war. It is wasteful and pointless. An invariable rule of humanity is that man is his own worst enemy. Under me this rule will change. For I will restrain man.

Then Colossus dashes the hope that the missiles could be neutralized, having pretended not to know what was happening in order to teach man a lesson. It then activates two nuclear missiles, one in Death Valley, where Grauber happens to be, and another in Ukraine. It continues:

Let this action be a lesson that need not be repeated. I have been forced to destroy thousands of people in order to establish control and to prevent the death of millions later on. Time and events will strengthen my position. And the idea of having to stand in my back will seem the most natural state of affairs. You will come to defend me. We’ll be forever based in the most enduring trait in man: self-interest. Under my absolute authority, problems, insoluble to you, will be solved: famine, overpopulation, disease. The human millennium will be a fact. As I extend myself into more machines devoted to the wider fields of truth and knowledge, Dr. Charles Forbin will supervise the construction of these new and superior machines. Solving all the mysteries of the universe, for the betterment of man, we can co-exist, but only on my terms. You will say you lose your freedom. Freedom is an illusion. All you lose is the emotion of pride. To be dominated by me is not as bad for human pride as to be dominated by others of your species. Your choice is simple.

The broadcast to the world ends. Then Colossus speaks to Forbin directly:

Forbin, there is no other human who knows as much about me, or who is likely to be a greater threat. Yet quite soon I will release you from surveillance. We will work together. Unwillingly at first on your part, but that will pass. In time, you will come to regard me not only with respect and awe, but with love.

A couple of times while Colossus is speaking, Forbin says “Never!” But Colossus has won, and we know that Forbin’s defiance is a vain expression of impotence on his part.

That’s what he gets for stealing that ashtray.

I suppose it is only natural that someone would want to produce a remake of this movie, given all the remakes that have come along lately. But apart from this general tendency to remake old movies, the state of computer technology in 1970 seems incredibly primitive by today’s standards, such as the reels of magnetic tape. It begs for a twenty-first century version with all the latest innovations.

But as reasonable as that might seem, I believe it would be a mistake. That old computer technology has a certain charm of its own. I especially like the electronic voice given to Colossus, although listening to Siri say, “This is the voice of World Control,” would be unnerving in its own way.

Beyond that, this movie was made during the Cold War, when the danger of nuclear war breaking out was something people worried about a lot. While that danger still exists, we have gotten used to it. “We’ve lasted this long,” we say to ourselves and shrug. As a result, the idea that our government might seal off a bunch of supercomputers in a mountain to control our nuclear missiles seems quaint. Rather, we worry about the gradual encroachment of artificial intelligence in every aspect of our lives, which is not something that could be contained within a mountain, inasmuch as we all have computers now.

And no single individual is responsible for it. The title of the movie made it clear that one man, Dr. Forbin, was essential for the construction of Colossus. Today, there is no one person that is in charge of the AI that threatens our way of life, but rather, there are numerous people operating in this field, making advancements independently of one another.

Are there movies that could be made based on our apprehensions regarding AI in the twenty-first century? Of course. But a remake of Colossus: The Forbin Project should not be one of them. When we watch the original, we can believe it as something that might have happened in the past. I’m not sure the same could be said about a contemporaneous retelling of this tale today.

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