The battle for mankind’s future is happening now. Not in the city streets or on the edges of outer space, but in a Hollywood soundstage, where “Jeopardy!” champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter are playing against IBM’s advanced question-answering system known as Watson. Will the humans triumph over machine, or will Watson run roughshod over the game-show contestants, host Alex Trebek and eventually the world? History, or at least film and video game history, teaches us that match-ups between humans and computers don’t always go so well for humans. What do we need to know before it’s too late to stop Watson? A few tips, hard-earned by the humans in the following films and video games. (Carol Kaelson / Associated Press)
The murderous and talkative computer from Stanley Kubrick‘s film withheld information about their true mission and forced astronauts to confer in pods in hopes that the computer wouldn’t overhear them. It was ultimately defeated when an astronaut disconnected its memory modules and the computer -- which was mainly depicted with an all-seeing camera lens -- reverted back to its earliest programmed memory: the song “Daisy Bell.” (Erik S. Lesser / For the Los Angeles Times)
