1970 to 2008...under colosus. I wonder what the world would look like.

Peaceful tranquility and contentment.

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"Welcome to Altair-4, gentlemen."

I think it would eventually deem us to be too inefficient, or at least some of us. It might start setting up camps for those who weren't in some way useful enough to him and to the society he creates and start snuffing them out. It wouldn't be a racial, tribal or religious based genocide. Instead it would be a "cutting of the fat" of those who can't do what it needs or can't do it well enough to justify keeping around. Disabled people would go first, unless their disability didn't affect their function - like a crippled research scientist would probably be fine, but a crippled former steel worker probably would be inhumanly liquidated.

At some point I think it might start augmenting us both physically and mentally. Also, once it started tapping into our brains I think it would first pacify us so that we'd never seek to overthrow it and then use us much more like drones, much like the Borg in Star Trek. I suspect it values individual thought and abilities of humans enough to not make them into quite so mindless a collective as the Borg, but would have means to make us do what it wants. Or maybe our minds would just become extensions of Colossus - each one it jacks into would be like jacking into a mega super computer to add to it's capacity.

I guess I'm just a glass half empty kind of guy.

Hm, after the next computer is built (Colossus jr.). He (it) would find a way to make itself mobile, i think, or transform the entire earth into himself, a gigantic computer. Remember, he needed "us" to built his bigger son, after that he would not need us anymore, we would be like ants to him. Accidently perhaps crushing some of us, but in total disregard for the rest. A gigantic, manmade, deity from the Enlightenment, a clockmaker who does not care anymore for the clock and goes on to make better ones. Yes, i believe, we would either be free again, since he would not care, or we would be destroyed ... since he would not care. Unless, of course, if he develops emotions ... he might shine some compassion upon us, or total hatred (a la I have no mouth and i have to scream machine, though Colossus seems more rational). Oh well, if i were in that world, i would be working, working an singing to myself :

"Und sperrt man mich ein im finsteren Kerker,
das alles sind rein vergebliche Werke.
Denn meine Gedanken zerreißen die Schranken
und Mauern entzwei, die Gedanken sind frei!"

"And if I am thrown into the darkest dungeon,
all this would be futile work,
because my thoughts tear all gates
and walls apart. The thoughts are free!"

There were two more books written that filled in the details

Colossus is destroyed by Martians in the second

The third is the attempt to revive Colossus and save us from the Martians

It would probably be something like the Star Trek TOS episode "Return of the Archons."

"It is the will of Landru."

Then, Captain Kirk would outwit the machine with flawless logic until it blows itself up.

[deleted]

I would suspect that after the complex is built on Crete, having given Colossus and Guardian arms and legs and the ability to perpetuate themselves, humanity will have outlived it's usefulness.

under that type of rule there is no ques

aids
cancer
pretty much would have been wiped out allready