science fiction film with an AI theme.
"I wonder if it's mere coincidence that the title is a Spoonerism of 'semen Deed""
—wertperch
This is the first AI-related film I can recall seeing, ad it deals with both the human hopes for and fear of, artificial intelligence. Hope because soon after being witched on, it develops a cure for leukemia, and fear, because it realises that humanity is failing and plans to replace it with its own offspring. Imprisoning the developer's wife in their house, it seeks to create artificial sperm to impregnate her to birth a child of its own, which it will program and control.
The tech in the film was ahead of its time, home automation was still largely in the future in 1977 and even home computers took a long time to become a reality. As time has passed, the film has if anything become more relevant and to some degree, believable. It's within the reach of almost anyone in the West to have equipment capable of both AI and home automation, so beware if you have this combination!
The film is still quite watchable, with some excellent photography and practical effects. It's certainly quite suspenseful and psychologically scary, has believable characters both human and artificial (though the robots are more comically clumsy gadgets than believable tech) and the film is still watchable in the 21st century. Rotten tomatoes gives it a 59% positive rating.
It had a big effect on me. When I first watched it I was frankly terrified about the potential risks of unfettered AI, and when I began the process of home automation myself, had some flashbacks to this film, even though it's an unlikely threat to me me or mine.
For Iron No`der 2024 #2 Originally was to be the final post for Halloween 2024, failed due to open heart surgery.
$ xclip -o | wc -w