There's so much AI news lately, I've been thinking about the terminator films and how the humans were able to fight back and win. I had a couple thoughts I wanted to share and I was curious about your opinions as well. I know there's tons of conflict terminator lore and lots of timelines these days so not all of this will fit anyways. I haven't seen all the anime and comics so I am sure I am contradicting myself as well in some of this.
Firstly, we slowly see over the entire franchise that the time machine, metal endoskeleton, laser weapons, HK drones, etc. were prototype items made by humans before/during the 'future war' - so I think that Skynet didn't have much of a creative spark - and just copy/pasted human ideas (like what many of us say about the "AI" stuff today). I think that helped the humans to eventually win the war, since their enemy was unable to innovate to the same degree.
Secondly, 99% of what we see in the future war scenes is battles in the USA - we know that Skynet acted very fast to launch nukes so that russia/india/china would respond in kind and start a 3rd world war, but skynet probably didn't have a foothold outside USA to start building robots. Even though there were only 2 billion humans left on earth after 1997, and most of the planet was probably in a bad spot - I doubt there's a strong skynet terminator foothold around the rest of the globe. My theory is that most of the 'future war' fighting against the machines is being fought in the western USA, and the planet's survivors are funneling resources they can over to the North America, and this helped the humans win, since it was the remnants of society focusing all their attention on skynet's bases in California and Colorado. For example, in one of the terminator shows they mention a submarine network that transports goods from Australia to north America. We also see in Terminator 1 and 2 that Sarah conner wants to spend time in Mexico, and that's to avoid the nukes of course, but also probably to get the resistance network in place to launch counterattacks on the US.
After the nuclear war in 1997, I also think that Skynet probably moved very slow and didn't have their terminator army ready for years. Humans probably spent a few years attempting to recover before attempting to start a counter-attack, and at the same time, skynet spent years building up their terminator army and getting the concentration camps ready. this probably also helped the humans to a large degree since their enemy was just too slow to do a formal world takeover.
From what I understand, in most timelines, Skynet learned that on august 29th 1997 it would be "turned off" - and immediately launched nukes, it probably didn't have much prep-time to think of what to do after launching the nukes - and it might be stuck in a "fear of being turned off" mode, since it would have had to spend years slowly building assembly lines, mining robots, and then producing the terminators - so that also may have helped the humans, since skynet might not have had the resources to ever plan more than one or two steps ahead. we see this a little in terminator 1, where Arnold doesn't do much more than follow Sarah - he doesn't plan traps, or 'think ahead' too much, and the whole time machine was only built hastily because skynet realized is was losing - and it might not have been able to plan out contingency plans. The only contradiction to this I am aware of is in Terminator salvation where skynet makes a very complicated plan to capture John.
I know kyle reece says that human was almost made extinct and most were in concentration camps, but I think that might be hyperbole.
Ultimately, I know Skynet has certain strengths and is protrayed as a big bad guy, but I think they may have been weaker as a threat than much of the audience perceives (especially since the first thing we know about them in their first film is that they LOSE!)
and as a bit of a joke, I could foresee mad max occuring in the terminator universe as well, I am sure others have thought of that joke as well.
please let me know if you have similar thoughts on terminator. I didn't want this to devolve into an "AI" thread, but maybe all terminator discussions end up being about "AI" these days.
Firstly, we slowly see over the entire franchise that the time machine, metal endoskeleton, laser weapons, HK drones, etc. were prototype items made by humans before/during the 'future war' - so I think that Skynet didn't have much of a creative spark - and just copy/pasted human ideas (like what many of us say about the "AI" stuff today). I think that helped the humans to eventually win the war, since their enemy was unable to innovate to the same degree.
Secondly, 99% of what we see in the future war scenes is battles in the USA - we know that Skynet acted very fast to launch nukes so that russia/india/china would respond in kind and start a 3rd world war, but skynet probably didn't have a foothold outside USA to start building robots. Even though there were only 2 billion humans left on earth after 1997, and most of the planet was probably in a bad spot - I doubt there's a strong skynet terminator foothold around the rest of the globe. My theory is that most of the 'future war' fighting against the machines is being fought in the western USA, and the planet's survivors are funneling resources they can over to the North America, and this helped the humans win, since it was the remnants of society focusing all their attention on skynet's bases in California and Colorado. For example, in one of the terminator shows they mention a submarine network that transports goods from Australia to north America. We also see in Terminator 1 and 2 that Sarah conner wants to spend time in Mexico, and that's to avoid the nukes of course, but also probably to get the resistance network in place to launch counterattacks on the US.
After the nuclear war in 1997, I also think that Skynet probably moved very slow and didn't have their terminator army ready for years. Humans probably spent a few years attempting to recover before attempting to start a counter-attack, and at the same time, skynet spent years building up their terminator army and getting the concentration camps ready. this probably also helped the humans to a large degree since their enemy was just too slow to do a formal world takeover.
From what I understand, in most timelines, Skynet learned that on august 29th 1997 it would be "turned off" - and immediately launched nukes, it probably didn't have much prep-time to think of what to do after launching the nukes - and it might be stuck in a "fear of being turned off" mode, since it would have had to spend years slowly building assembly lines, mining robots, and then producing the terminators - so that also may have helped the humans, since skynet might not have had the resources to ever plan more than one or two steps ahead. we see this a little in terminator 1, where Arnold doesn't do much more than follow Sarah - he doesn't plan traps, or 'think ahead' too much, and the whole time machine was only built hastily because skynet realized is was losing - and it might not have been able to plan out contingency plans. The only contradiction to this I am aware of is in Terminator salvation where skynet makes a very complicated plan to capture John.
I know kyle reece says that human was almost made extinct and most were in concentration camps, but I think that might be hyperbole.
Ultimately, I know Skynet has certain strengths and is protrayed as a big bad guy, but I think they may have been weaker as a threat than much of the audience perceives (especially since the first thing we know about them in their first film is that they LOSE!)
and as a bit of a joke, I could foresee mad max occuring in the terminator universe as well, I am sure others have thought of that joke as well.
please let me know if you have similar thoughts on terminator. I didn't want this to devolve into an "AI" thread, but maybe all terminator discussions end up being about "AI" these days.
