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https://theconversation.com/forbidden-planet-hit-cinemas-in-1956-its-warnings-about-ai-should-terrify-us-288391>
"When
Forbidden Planet arrived in cinemas in 1956, it was a daring investment
in a small genre. At a time when science fiction meant low-budget monster
movies and tales of alien invasion, MGM spent big on something far more
ambitious: a movie that imagined a world of interplanetary travel, robotics and
alien civilisations with real seriousness and scale.
The premise is a familiar sci-fi trope now, but wasn’t then. United Planet
Cruiser C-57D crosses the stars using a faster-than-light “hyperdrive” and
lands on distant Altair-4. Its mission: find out what happened to the colony
there.
The crew, led by Commander Adams (a young Leslie Nielsen), finds Dr Edward
Morbius (Walter Pidgeon) living in isolation with his daughter Altaira (Anne
Francis) and their mechanical servant, Robby – the screen robot who would go on
to be one of sci-fi’s most enduring icons in his own right.
Morbius claims to have unlocked the secrets of the vanished Krell, an ancient
civilisation whose technological achievements far outstripped humanity’s. The
rest of the colony, he says, were murdered in mysterious circumstances.
The film is interesting to revisit for many reasons, including its
interpretation of Shakespeare’s
The Tempest, and its legacy in shaping sci-fi
cinema. But watching it 70 years after its release, perhaps it is most striking
for what it has to say about the rise of artificial intelligence in our own
age.
Technology may give us extraordinary new power. But it may also give our
deepest, least understood desires a power of their own."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
