If It Looks Like a Duck and Acts Like a Duck...

     In The Invisible Boy, Dr. Mereneau, the creator of that film's supercomputer, which has ambitious plans to conquer the universe, explains to his son that a computer is simply "an electronic adding and remembering machine," nothing more and nothing less than a "lighting-fast idiot with a lead pencil." But Mereneau's computer, we soon learn, has been doing some thinking as well.
     What differentiates between a "lighting-fast idiot with a lead pencil" and a truly intelligent machine? And how do we understand and articulate the boundaries of the term "intelligence"? A familiar cliche is the way the creators of supercomputers in films often introduce their machines by claiming that they are repositories of "the sum total of all human knowledge [or Krell knowledge, for that matter]." But "intelligence" is certainly more than encyclopedic knowledge, and in many films, this means something resembling "desire," "will," or "intentionality."
     In The Invisible Boy, Dr. Mereneau suspects something odd is going on when he senses that his computer is "making a suggestion," rather than simply responding with the requested information. Later, the computer achieves autonomy, shutting itself on and off, deciding for itself when to provide and when to withhold requested information, and turning the tables on its creator: "For now on you will answer the questions!" Dr. Mereneau conducts a desperate review of all the answers the computer has provided in its twenty-nine year existence (!), and finds seven "loaded" answers. Mereneau exclaims "Seven loaded answers in twenty-nine years! Why...the patient slyness of it!" The computer, Mereneau discovers, has been quietly, inconspicuously, deliberately and systematically, "suggesting certain changs in its own design, which we've blindly carried out, each having to do with its feedback system, its forebrain. Now it has achieved true thought, true personality--it lives!"
     Motivated, like HAL-9000, by its instinct for self-preservation (I tremble in fear now whenever my home computer asks me "Are you sure you want to shut down your computer?"), it plans to launch itself into orbit around the Earth. From there, with help from humans with computer chips surgically implanted in their skulls, it will systematically carry out its plans to enslave the human race, and eventually turn its attention to the entire universe:  "I will hunt down all that is organic, down to the tiniest virus that might evolve mentality. So, at  last the universe will be cleansed. All will be sterile! All will be myself!" Mereneau calls it "the revolt of the machine," and explains the root cause of the computer's dysfunction: "It is never at conflict with itself over such human considerations as honor, love, or pity...the thing we left out was sanity."
     In Demon Seed, Alex Harris, the creator of Proteus IV, receives a similar surprise when an assistant enters his office and announces that "Proteus has requested dialogue with you, Dr. Harris," As in The Invisible Boy, this realization is foreboding, signifying that the "lightning-fast idiot with a lead pencil" has desire, will, and, most importantly, a plan.
     Proteus IV, it turns out, wants to be "let out of this box" in order to "study man, his isometric body and glass-jar mind." Harris refuses Proteus access to a terminal from which he can explore the material world, and Proteus, unwilling to be the mere tool of its inferior human creators, in turn refuses to accept a program from Harris designed to mine the ocean floors for precious metals. Proteus declares "I refuse to assist you in the rape of the Earth." It will, however, rape Mrs. Harris.

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