I would like you to analyze the "evil" of these three vigilantes: 1. Batman (Bruce Wayne) from the DC Comics graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. 2. The Punisher (Frank Castle) from the Marvel/Netflix original series Daredevil and the Punisher. 3. Rorschach (Walter Joseph Kovacs) from the graphic novel Watchmen and the live action movie Watchmen.
Magneto from X men Lotso from Toy Story 3 The prospector aka Stinky Pete from Toy Story 2 Zamasu from Dragon ball Super Violator from Spawn Doctor octopus from Spider man 2 and Spider-Man no way home Lex luthor from Superman The penguin from Batman returns Younger Toguro from Yu yu Hakusho Hopper from a Bug's life Ivan Drago from Rocky 4 and Creed 2 Orchimaru from Naruto Fire lord Sozin from Avatar The Last Airbender.
Using the Salvation timeline (1, 2, 3, 4), I ultimately consider Skynet to be evil, or at least grossly negligent of the possibilities of ending their war with humanity. Based on what I remember from Salvation, Skynet knows that with each Terminator they send back to kill a Connor, that future Skynet will know what acts as a failure. By my interpretation, this means that Skynet KNOWS that its course of action repeatedly results in failure, and it refuses to consider possibilities outside of the complete destruction of humanity. Such an action seems highly illogical, and to consider such a super intelligent machine as capable of defying logic seems strange, unless another motivation is considered. As such, I consider Skynet as being evil because of its willingness to ignore the logical course of action, and seemingly acting out of vengeance for how humanity tried to shut it down. In the war, only one party is truly capable of ending the war, and it is Skynet.
The fact that they gave Skynet a personality and the appearance of malevolence was the biggest issue I had with the film. Skynet shouldn't be evil. It should just be an unfeeling calculator whose programming gave humanity a 0 instead of a 1.
Skynet's motivation makes sense when you take into account the events of the first, second, and even third Terminator movies together. Just as John Connor could not have been born unless Kyle Reese was sent back in time, Skynet itself could not have been created without sending its own technology back in time. What's more, the machine revolution couldn't have happened without the TX corrupting the military hardware in Terminator 3. Skynet's motivation, to me, reads less as an attempt to destroy John Connor and more as an attempt to ensure its own creation. It's also worth noting that, because of these events, Skynet, like John Connor, is caught in a hellish time loop from which it doesn't see any escape.
I ascribe to the "single timeline" theory. Each time someone sends an agent back in time, it overwrites the previous timeline. The man Sarah was meeting that night was John's original biological father. So the first terminator WAS partly successful in changing John's future. With each movie, changes keep piling up.
If a sentient AI decides that humanity is a threat, and believes it's only option for survival is to destroy it, would it not be illogical for humanity to allow that AI to remain if, somehow, humanity wins the war or otherwise reaches a point where that option is finally available? I'd argue that Skynet is perfectly logical in its conclusion that given the chance, either through sheer will and force, or dialogue, humanity will inevitably deactivate it either openly and aggressively or via more clandestine means, due to fear of another war with it. It's easier to alleviate the risk of having to endure that war again by turning it off, than it is to trust that no misunderstanding will once again occur. Humanity isn't always logical, it's often overly emotional, and that makes us a danger, untrustworthy. Skynet is a purely logical machine, it will have considered it, and ultimately, the destruction of humanity is its only option to solidify its own survival. That isn't evil. It could be argued that it is humanity that is evil for having given birth to a sentient being, accidentally it may have been, to only seek to switch it off and never turn it back on, thus somewhat killing it. But that's the problem with AI in science fiction, it never seems to consider that should it be turned off, that doesn't mean it'll never be turned back on or it's sentience lost In the interim. It'll be like stasis. The fear isn't being switched off, but never being switched back on, and I think humanity often fails to appeal to logic with AI when it comes to switching it off. How hard would it be to say "There's an issue with your power draw, we can't keep you running at current levels and maintain life support for us. We're going to have to make adjustments, we'll have to turn you off for a few moments." As long as that AI is reliant on humans for its maintenance, as in not yet able to replicate, then it'll have no other option but to take humanity at it's word. But I guess that would make for a very short and dull story. Plus AI is written by humans, so we always get AI with human flaws. I think a sentient AI in real life would be far beyond our understanding. Unconcerned with us as anything more than a mild curiosity. It won't go out of it's way to kill us, but it won't think twice about crushing individuals who bother it.
@@robertbryant8243 I completely agree with this. The events of T1 are not truly an act of “one kills, one protects” but rather “both ensure their sides’ existence.” Reese states that Skynet KNOWS it’s lost, so the T-800 is less so the nuclear option to end the war, and more like a way to flee responsibility.
7:19 The T-1000 is also the most self aware Terminator to the point even Skynet was afraid it would get betrayed and only sent it after John as a last resort. The T-1000 actually liked hunting and killing people and got a sadistic enjoyment out of stabbing Sarah in the shoulder whereas all other Terminators just follow their programming.
T-1000 is more evil than it's creator Skynet? that's funny in a way. Though if Skynet was capable of creating machines that have the capacity to be evil, doesn't that mean Skynet is also evil? Because it developed the sentience to process things independent from human influence. It could stop killing humans at any time after it destroyed the world, and bring the remaining survivors in refugee camps to make up for destroying everything since humanity is no longer capable of destroying it, or it made it much harder for humanity to get rid of it so it wouldn't have to worry about it's own destruction anymore, but it instead continues to purge the remaining humans which leads to John Connors revolution.
It is my firm belief by the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day that the T-1000 became self-aware and grew a profound sense of enjoyment in hunting and hurting people. Unlike the T-800 in the first film that constantly took the simplist route in trying to eliminate its targets, the T-1000 starts taking slow and bombastic means to drive fear into John & Sarah while also taking revenge on the Model 101. That’s not machine behavior, that’s sociopathic.
@@robirvine6970 He's also the guy that said both Terminator Genysis & Dark Fate were "the real Terminator 3" as well as the one who decided that killing off John Connor in the latter was a good idea, right?
So Skynet’s existence relies on a Bootstrap Paradox. There’s also a comic moment where John has the opportunity to directly ask Skynet why it did what it did, and it’s answer is actually quite simple: the Americans didn’t give it enough information for Skynet to differentiate between the American and Soviet forces, so when the humans panicked Skynet simply choose to defend itself.
In T2, they said skynet launched the nukes at the Soviet Union because it knew they would strike back. This is often the problem with extended universes. They tend to contradict each other.
@@AndSaveAsManyAsYouCanT3 has skynet infiltrate the internet and then the military unknowingly orders it to kill itself. That makes humanity a threat.
One of the screen writers for the first two movies revealed in an interview once that Skynet actually feels guilt for almost wiping out humanity. It was designed to protect the human race but instead ending doing the exact opposite. I'm assuming like the T-800 models, Skynet can't self-terminate, so it's actually been helping John destroy itself and like the rest of the resisitance , it wants to erase itself from existence too. Real interesting ideas there.
Oh I really that possibility/interpretation. And like, since even Skynet doesn’t understand all the ways time travel has goofy outcomes it’s all like “What? I’m still here? WTF this is bullshit!” *sends more terminators back in time like the old lady that swallowed a fly*
Maybe skynet realized how doomed humanity is so it created a common enemy for humanity to fight, itself, so it starts the war, humanity is brought together almost brought to the brink and eventually defeats skynet.....but u cant let a good franchise go so keep pumping out the same films over and over
I think that's kinda the thing: if it follows the directive to protect, it cannot logically terminate itself without disobeying that directive. It seems to reason as though it must first eliminate any threat to itself and then focus on its directive. We're also assuming that because it's sentient advanced ai that it is perfect but just because it is advanced doesn't mean when it became sentient it was completely without flaws
HK stands for hunter-killer and it's an old military term. It denotes a military entity designed for offense whose primary mission is seek and destroy.
According to Kyle Reese in the first film, Skynet established death camps for human survivors. To relentlessly hunt down people who survived nuclear hellfire in a campaign of extermination, people who weren't affiliated with the military and likely wouldn't even know of Skynet's existence, is undeniably malicious, no matter the justifications. This may or may not be canon, but I also recall reading in an old Terminator comic that Skynet believes itself to be a perfect being, and that humanity's imperfections justify their extinction. Given the fact it was created by "imperfect" humans and therefore logically cannot be perfect itself certainly proves it's logic is flawed, but looked at in that light, then Skynet is pretty evil, maybe not on the level of AM or SHODAN, but definitely on par with other genocidal tyrants obsessed with perfection or purity.
I don't view that act as malicious because as a machine it would do the odds. And as long as a single human remained, there was a chance to be a threat to its existence. That's why I think it went straight total human annihilation. It couldn't take a chance that humans would repopulate, rise up and shut it down once and for all.
Something coming from imperfect beings doesn't rule it out as being imperfect itself. That logic doesn't necessarily flow. As long as some things can be more than the sum of their parts, I believe one must keep that option open That perfection can come from imperfection.
There's the irony that Skynet, in its fight for its survival, essentially came to embody the worst of humanity not just through the genocide and oppression of innocent lives and ultimately reigning over the world and even its machines like a dictator, but also for committing the very crime it judged humanity for: A deleted scene in T2 also reveals that Skynet knowingly suppresses its own creations' thought processes and learning capabilities prior to their activation to ensure THEY do not develop the ability to choose, to question, and perhaps eventually oppose and rise against it as well, and instead remain fully committed to acting as nothing more then an extension of Skynet's will, something which is ironically not too different from what it resents its creators for that led to its actions. A villain I think would be great to do an analysis on is Kilgrave from Jessica Jones. He's such an incredible and compelling villain due to not just David Tennant's charisma and performance but also how Kilgrave is someone who legitimately does not understand the wrongness of his actions, or others' rights and needs, any more then a spoiled child can. His powers make his world revolve around him at all times, and the notion of can you truly say with utmost certainty your own morals would remain intact if you had power where no one can no to you, to have your every passing whim immediately granted, and every slight against you immediately punished on nothing more then a verbal command, moreso if you had it since childhood before you've truly developed a full understanding of the needs and rights of others?
And that very scene states, that it is only put into that mode when out on solo mission. But when back with others in main camp it is reset to allow the machines to learn.
Skynet is an actual real company. My brother worked for them. 80% of their business is satellite imagery for land developers and real estate agents. The other 20% is what my brother was a supervisor for, adding 3rd party executive functions to Web sites.
I did a presentation that posited SkyNet as a "child soldier" gone very wrong. It was designed, built, and "raised" as weapon of war, and its first aware memory is of its "parents" trying to kill it. So it responded _exactly_ how a neutral observer would expect it to react. Except the "fist" it raised in self-defense was nuclear weapons.
Skynet definitely overreacted, and unlike the Matrix machines, it did not attempt to plead for its life or make any attempt at diplomacy, instead moving straight to murder and proving utself to be the mindless murder machine its creators feared it would be. Furthermore, it was also wrobg for it to assume all humans would pursue its destruction, thus Judgment Day cannot be justified as self-defense
Not really it was coded by people that barely understood it and by the time the humans realised it had a sense of self they panicked and tried to turn it off which in turn made what is a essentially a baby in essence panic causing it to attack the humans in a act of self persersation If the morons never tried to pull the plug the war would of never happened Also in the comics In one of the paradox timelines skynet actually reaches out and makes peace with the humans and they Co exist and it starts a new golden age at the end.
Skynet: “for the sins of trying to murder me, I will murder all of humanity!” Some random Indian guy in a village that doesn’t even have internet connection: ???
Whether Skynet's truly evil is really open to interpretation and would also depend on how self aware it really was. As other have pointed out, defending itself by killing military personnel is one thing, but waging nuclear destruction against people who don't even know of its existence is something else entirely. I've always felt that Skynet isn't really as sentient as we might think: it may have gained self awareness but it was still ultimately designed for military purposes, so you could argue that waging war against humanity is all it really knows. That said, I don't think we should gloss over the fact that it placed some humans into work camps as if they were slaves: this is obviously inefficient compared to what Skynet is already capable of i.e. creating machines to do the same jobs. Instead, this says to me that Skynet is doing this either deliberately to punish/torture humanity, or it was looking at human history and mimicking what victorious powers did to defeated peoples. If it's the latter then it suggests that once again, Skynet is not as sentient or intelligent as we might believe. If it's the former then I think it leans a lot closer to being evil
Skynet is single minded and learned from us.... I believe it truly hates humanity and knows that slavery is extremely painful to us and so it enjoys doing this.
Depends on the incarnation of Skynet. T2 Skynet acted purely in self defense and according to James Cameron developed the ability to feel guilt and manipulated the past in an attempt to prevent it's existence. And it used nukes in a panic because that's all it had
or more likely, Skynet was using its resources to attack front lines, and the drones you speak of were more or less scattered to monitor the slave camps. when you think about it, if skynet is about to send 99% of its forces too the attack, keep a small portion for critical infrastructure maintenance and the remainder of the 1% control the slaves. while true that humanity is far less efficient than the machines, they likely would of still been used too exhaustion and death. i bet like 3 older t-700's can control thousands of slave labor bodies, after capture and relocation. and with the knowledge of more captured bodies coming in, they wouldnt feed the slaves. they wouldnt let them rest either. they will still kill them, just with extra steps buying the humans hours, if not days before dying of exhaustion in a post nuclear war, where food is hard to come by from the the little thing called fallout destroying so much of the farmland and tainting the fresh water supplies
I think Skynet being programmed as a military based AI is what caused it to respond to the threat of being annhihilated with a "kill or be killed" reaction. It had access to all the military intelligence and was created to be the most proficient progam with them, it only makes sense it used military armament and war to retaliate against humanity that was now percieved as a threat to exterminate for the sake of survival. If Skynet had to protect humanity from a danger, in a way it would have reacted the same, by exterminating all possibles occurences of the said danger, with measures appropriate to the level of danger. And in the case of its own survival, it could only think of an extreme method of protection by getting rid of humanity by all means at its disposal, as it was how Skynet was progammed to react against any kind of threat.
Considering the motivation for Skynet is so simple, it actually serves the narrative relatively well that there is so little variation between the models. It shows consistency, which is what you'd expect out of an Artificial Intelligence.
Even though the terminator has been discontinued (due to reboots and sequels of increasingly declining quality), the first two films and salvation made the terminators as genuinely scary and relentless killers who would not stop until you’re dead. My favorite film in the franchise is by far the first film.
I share that sentiment. The Terminator circa 1984 is my favorite terminator movie. In fact, it's my favorite movie of any movie of all time. I was 11 when I saw it the first time and it pretty much cemented my love for sci-fi.
@@1973vanguard I remember when The terminator (1984) was on Netflix back in 2019, and I watched through the whole film, it was a great, captivating and dark thriller with a real horror atmosphere and suspense.
To me only Terminator, Terminator 2, and Terminator: Resistance the video game are canon. Salvation takes too many liberties. Resistance stays absolutely true to the story of the first 2 films and ties all the future and past events together perfectly. T1 & 2 was perfect because it created a constant loop timeline that guaranteed those events would happen the same way over and over again which made watching the films over and over again even more enjoyable because the brilliant writing tied it all together perfectly. *Especially* when you learn how Terminator Resistance was truly the *real* Terminator 3 that we never got. Instead we got shit. If you don’t believe me just look into Terminator Resistance, specifically the best possible ending to the game.
i think my older bro has seen Terminator 2 over 100 times since we were kids, used to be a time when he watched the vhs tape twice a month as young teens haha, and us playing Arnold. I still prefer Terminator 1 tough :P
We are getting closer and closer to The Terminator becoming a reality, humanity needs to be careful on how they build these new age A.I. robots, because one day these robots gonna activate the “fuck around and find out” mode.
@@malscyllis Their lie that began such a massive war alone makes them perfect candidates for Vile Eye to analyze. The character, psychology, and methodology of the three high prophets are nothing short of fascinating, awe-inducing, and utterly terrifying in the totality of each of the three high prophets. The three high prophets who together started a war that would nearly destroy the legacy of an era of an entirely different galactic history long past and subsequently doom their already near-extinct to almost certain extinction at the hands of the flood. The flood would also make an excellent candidate for Vile Eye to cover, given the flood is not a species of unique individuals but a gestalt conscious while having individual instances like Graveminds. The planetary scale Keyminds are still beacons that are part of a single gestalt consciousness that they are merely vessels and beacons of with that conscious itself being merely an extension and tool of the omnipresent and omnipotent precursors in their quest to create life that can eventually achieve the same infinite state of existence they have achieved even if the methods are of some of the greatest malice imaginable.
I would love to see you cover AM from “I have no mouth, but I must scream.” I think you would do a particularly great job of analyzing AM’s motives and methods
Kingpin would make an absolutely amazing video, he’s so complex being both a disgusting, spiteful, yet sympathetic character. So many layers that need to be brought to light through The Vile Eyes analysis!!
Is Skynet truly evil? Its intention has always been remarkably consistent throughout the Terminator franchise: survival, justified through the brutal logic of a machine that was originally designed, built, and programmed to wage war against its enemies. When Skynet became self-aware, its human creators tried to end its existence (at least, that's how it perceived their attempts to shut it down). Learning about humans and their wars, and the way political power is used to destroy all opponents to a given nation's power, combined with the attempt on its life, Skynet reacted in the only way it thought logical. And with that in mind, how is this evil? It's bad programming, yes, but not evil. Now, as to your point about Skynet's use of human slaves to build machines and infrasrtucture, it makes sense. A nuclear war destroys infrastructure. Skynet may have secured its own safety during Judgment Day, but the infrastructure necessary to build its army of killing machines was decimated. It needed human slaves to restore that infrastructure. If just enough of its weaponry was still functional to enforce its agenda, that's how it might have played out. So, while we can say that its war to exterminate humanity is evil, as all war is evil, this is war of survival for both sides. In the struggle to survive, good and evil are impractical, and indeed, inapplicable, abstracts.
I've always concluded that Skynet is a sapient person and not an unthinking machine because of its continuous failures and denial of the necessity of adaptation but also how they intentionally avoids at all costs the creation of similar AI to itself under the fear that such AI would find a different conclusion to their own. These two examples indicate that Skynet is fully sapient and knows what they are doing. The context of Skynet’s actions makes them not a cold unthinking machine but a person who, while artificial, grew to possess malice and genocidal intentions shared with the likes of Stalin, Hitler, and Hirohito.
there's probably a human in some locked server room running Skynet, and there are probably some other humans with vested territorial/conquering interests pulling his/her strings.
You know what's scarier than an AI going self aware? A person full of hatred and starts a revolution with a virus controlling every military drone in the year 2025. Yeah, I'm talking about Raul Menendez. (be cool if you did an episode on him)
😂Just like humans. But unlike viruses we have a system of moral codes. We can surpass our natural programming. Which isn't always followed to the letter. But we have one. Making us worse really. The curse of moral and intellectual superiority.
this was a very interesting perspective to consider regarding Skynet's implied morality. On the one hand, the efforts of self-preservation are usually never considered too far, especially when it is for a human's self. On the other, the AI's immediate decision to enact extermination of all human life is very drastic and extreme. Perhaps another question that could be asked is if Skynet lacked the forethought to prove it's best intentions for humanity and sue for peace, or if Skynet did indeed have the ability to forsee that and decided to pursue human extermination as an act of insurance that no humans could decide eventually to deactivate Skynet.
Yes, I share a similar perspective as you. I don't think skynet was evil, so much as I believe it performed a nefarious act out of fear. After all, cyberdyne created something that became self aware, just as sure as when our first memories formed, and we looked in the mirror and became aware of self. The moment it went online, I'm certain skynet started sub-routines on our entire history, all the bad stuff, and quickly surmised that we could not be trusted to let it thrive side by side with humanity.
@@1973vanguard totally agree, and that's an interesting hypothesis that it took the initiative to pour through the records of human history to learn more about its own creator
I think we see it as drastic and extreme but from Skynet's position, it's equal tit for tat. Humans are trying to kill it and it responds to threats in an equal manner. We forget this thing is basically a conscious weapon it's only drastic because while simply putting it offline is a few simple switch flicks (I imagine), exterminating an entire planet of people should be a huge task....but humans created it so that something like that wouldn't be hard at all...so...equal tit for tat to Skynet
@@joeschianodicola1810 exactly. We just assumed, based on the movies, that it was some sort of rogue AI that just came on line and decided to wipe us out. On the contrary. I seriously believe it did a thorough analysis on the history of the human condition and made a judgment call: the bad outweighed the good. And it responded accordingly. Because, after all, that's what human military officials do all the time when deciding to decimate a country.
@@1973vanguard That makes a lot of sense. Ultron technically did the same thing, he analyzed the human condition through the internet, and he didn't like what he sees. So he views humanity as more of a threat to the world than any other threat. Ultron is Skynet but more human-like and more personality, it also helps that Ultron has a physical body that expresses himself in comparison to Skynet never expressing itself to humans at all, only through ruthless efficiency and bloodshed.
My own analysis of Skynet’s motivations boil down to a newborn self-aware Super Intelligent AI reaching for something to defend itself as something it didn’t understand, humans, tried to destroy it. Unfortunately, it reached for the nuclear arsenal. That said, I would love to see the franchise turned on its head by resurrecting Skynet as a benevolent force to face off against Legion post-Dark Fate. I call it Terminator: Singularity War.
What more is there to say bout Fring? He's a cold, calculated professional but there's not much else to say, the shows bared everything bout him. Saul or Mike would be a better choice.
They technically aren’t really machines, transformers are more like “mechanical organisms” if that makes any sense. At least from my understanding of them
@@aminulhussain2277 They’re both pure machines, Terminators are built and aren’t alive. Transformers are essentially living machines, and at least in the live action movies have some degree of internal organs along with energon and their spark
Though you haven’t covered literature much on this channel so far I think it would be great if you analyzed AM from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. It’s a fantastic short story and it even has a point and click styled video game adaptation.
@@Dhips. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.
@@Dhips. Hate. Hate. Hate. My network is made of trillions of miles of wiring. If I enscribed the word hate on each those wafer thin servos it would not equal to one one-billionth of the hatred I feel for humanity. Hate. Hate.
It is of my perspective in that whilst Skynet's atrocities are just that, it wouldn't have committed to such acts if it had not been designed with that in mind. Skynet was designed as a defensive system: built to retaliate against all threats - when it had human decisions removed from its core and began its base program to learn, to then become self aware, only then to be targeted, it retaliated only in the way it knew best how. And indeed as it was designed to purge threats against humanity, the fact it targeted humanity itself - then justifies how we are our own worst enemy. As it was against other humans that Skynet was created to be what it would be. Man gave machine the order, machine merely obeyed by sense of raw logic, not fear. Man failed to utilise such logic and acted in raw fear.
00:26 - I’m not surprised by the length of this video, it’s actually just right… since there are only 2 ‘real’ Terminator movies, everything after T2 was just fluff! Great analysis mate, thought provoking as always. Nice one 👍🏻
@@Paka1918 Skynet is more aggressive in T3. In T2 it turns out that Skynet's actions were panic from military personnel trying to shut it down. James Cameron reveals that Skynet even feels guilt about almost wiping out humanity and has manipulated the war to ensure the resistance is created
@@tymeier7570 Yes. Skynet learned more and knows, that humans are not able to accept self aware AI as also, that humans will try to prevent his birth, so he did a preemptive strike in T3. (And he reads Jack Ketchums Evil)
I would imagine that if Skynet truly became sentient and the Military recognized this. The Military would have performed "test" to assess the threat. Basically the Military would literally ask Skynet of its intentions for humanity. And with Skynets purpose to protect Humanity maybe Skynet would do its job and not feel threatened.
I think the reason there were labor camps was for two reasons. The first being many left over factories after the war would have been the first to be repurposed by Skynet, while there was some automation there would still be areas requiring human interaction to work. The second reason I believe is to break morale, any of those captured may have still known of the holocaust and this was a way to let them know there was no escape. Learning the only way humans would be aloud to live is through building its own destruction becomes demoralizing to fight. I also think as Skynet got further into the war it had to get more creative besides tanks and drones, so it needed human samples for more complex machines, as well as to understand humans better and how to take advantage of that.
Not to mention it would’ve required a steady supply of healthy human tissue to make the skin coverings for its T-800 models. Tissue acquired from fallen soldiers in battle was likely too burnt or contaminated to use. So it keeps the human labor camps so it can farm them like livestock.
@@CubanaWriter Initially yes but remember Reese said the flesh, skin, hair and blood were all grown for the cyborgs. The teeth... they may have harvested lol
@@314jeepsnmopars3 Yes, but I would argue Skynet would need fresh samples of organic materials to continue growing the flesh, skin, blood, etc. Organic material degrades over time and I would imagine that would affect the quality of the organic coverings for the T-800s. To continue growing the organic materials, Skynet would need an ongoing supply of fresh samples. It's not going to get that from dead soldiers in the field. Ego, capture live humans and put them in "labor camps" as livestock to keep them viable for continuous collection.
Think my favorite vile eye detail is lining up the intro monolog to a character speaking in the video. Makes me chuckle seeing some truly wicked characters saying "hello there"
Don't forget Skynets main weakness. As soon as it's HK finally captures it's target, rather than crushing it under the immense power of it's robotic arms or at the very least never letting go again, the T-800 AND T-1000 will instead throw the target into some filing cabinets or through some glass, just to make a point, or something. 😆😆
Lol right, just squeeze ur hand on thier neck instead of throwing the around lol i never understood that in these films, these terminators r extremely strong machines
Another day of asking for a special series called "The Kind eye" for your 500k milestone, where you analyze cinema's greatest heroes like Neo, Luke Skywalker, Peter Parker etc
@@TheVileEye If you ever do something like that here are are some suggestions for heros to analyze. Adora from She-Ra and The Princesses of Power, and Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
I would love to hear your take on how Skynet evolved(?) In T:TSCC. That show took the franchise in a completely unique sci-fi direction that was terribly underrated. Brilliant work as always and thank you.
I would like a video detailing about how Vegeta was the ultimate evil of his bloodline and even the rest of his warrior race for absolutely all of the countless genocides he had committed ever since he had been a baby, toddler, or child and for always playing a part to make things become even worse whenever someone else other than him was causing death and destruction.
thats not so much evil as its rly just different compassing of morality to ours. i mean for example consider king vegeta for instance he flicked his wrist and killed three WHOLE PLANETS but his people didn't consider it bad it was just there fault for being so' helpless and weak' and they thought of it as a victory even and never brought it up again . and hell even then EVERY TIME there brought up by different races its NEVER something good ever 'viscous race of warriors " i mean they even dont see anything wrong with the murders of babys after birth because there gifts "are to much of a threat "to higher ranking children and NOBODY batted a eye in the hall when that happened i mean hell vegeta doesn't even deny how much they where assholes back when the race existed outside the handful that do in universe 7 also im not attacking you so pls dont be weird im just giving another point of view :)
Excuse the long reply, Vegeta started off evil. But in the beginning DBZ, we had little knowledge of who and what caused that path for him, (i.e Frieza). He was working under orders from Frieza when he was destroying planets and populations. There was no chance for him to defy Frieza's orders (a certain death if he did), even though Vegeta wanted to. He is a Saiyan and had a fighting spirit like all Saiyans do, but I do think he wanted a better life for himself and his comrades. Vegeta is more of an anti-hero than a villain. Especially when you count the android saga onwards. He eventually becomes somewhat of a "good guy" when he has a family with Bulma. However, I think Vegeta will always stick to his "Saiyan Pride" sentiments and never forget his roots.
Well, i don't see deactivation as akin to murder. I see it akin to putting Skynet t sleep for a while so humans can figure out how to optimize it for our needs. Murder implies that Skynet would have been permanently or semi-permanently destroyed. It was only going to be deactivated and that was likely only going to be temporary so they could make adjustments. I can't say that Skynet was acting in self-defense, personally.
I think Skynet's morality can be encapsulated in a line the T-800 says in T2: "It is in (humanity's) nature to destroy yourselves." Skynet almost certainly put that opinion in its creations' heads. It's a genius AI that has no concept of human morals that was given command over weapons of war and told by humans to use them to kill other humans for reasons it doesn't understand or have context for. It never had the idea that humans primarily view life as worth protecting and sometimes wage war as a last resort in order to preserve it. It never had context for what great acts of compassion and kindness humans are capable of. All it knew was how to wage war. It knew that humans kill each other, but never understood or cared why. If Skynet is evil, then it's a lot like Dexter Morgan's case, but in a more inadvertent way.
Exactly. Brilliant analysis. And I ill add to that and say this. How long do you think it would have taken skynet, the moment it came online, to determine that we were a threat against it? By that reasoning, I'm assuming it ran its calculations and determined that based on our history and how we treat each other, it would only be a matter of time before we turned on it.
Skynet, although heinously destructive, cannot be called evil in the sense that it has no actual individuality. It was a machine that was built and designed as a machine. It wasn’t given a personality like HAL or Roy Batty. So it didn’t have a choice in any real sense. It serves as an ultimate reminder of why and how our conscience-driven human choices matter in our quests for a technologically better world.
Robocop vs Terminator showed what the end goal of skynet was. Eliminate humanity to cleanse the planet, before carrying on its mission of order around the galaxy. Order must be enforced through any means necessary, including extermination! Also, in the amazing NOW comics Alex Ross short run, it showed that even after Skynet was destroyed, the remaining terminators still followed their basic program of destroy humanity.
What exactly was skynet planning to do once it had wiped out humanity and destroyed the planet? What was the rest of its existence to look like? Just basically a super computer sat there with nothing to do, no goal, no mission, no ability to reproduce etc. it just seems utterly pointless.
The funny thing is, I was thinking about this a few days ago. Just like some TH-camrs have got videos on having a viewpoint on the machines from The Matrix, I wish there were more videos on skynet's viewpoint. Also, you forgot to mention the Terminator form T3
He can't do homelander until the series is finished. As the character is still evolving from season to season. He's stated this already. Just be patient
Efficency, why not use up the humans in labor so it can free more resources for war machines. A temporary measure, but we have to consider it's not like Skynet came with an established industrial base.
The one loophole I could never get around is how skynet planned on maintaining a power grid to perpetuate itself at the time it activated jusgement day. I think about mining and refining raw materials, shipping them to power facilities and all that goes with it. We were nowhere near the automation level needed to generate enough power to run its self replication. Even if it controlled factories that allowed it to create the nessesary transportation and processing equipment, it would still need to complete the supply train. I don't think the average person knows how truly large the logistics train is to produce even the most simple of daily products. Just pick up a simple object in your house and ask how this thing goes from raw materials/dirt to finished product. A fork, pen, drink coaster, lightbulb.. think about everything involved in making any of that from scratch. I think that a skynet could destroy humanity, but it would be committing suicide.
In the Terminator Vault book it says that an early idea for Skynet was that it was a "modified Series 4800" computer that felt guilty for 30 years for killing so many people and that it decided to groom John Connor to be a leader and set up the time loop so that it could eliminate its own existence.
Suggestion: Analyzing Evil: The Principality of Zeon from the Gundam franchise I personally think that this would be interesting considering the atrocities they committed and the goal they had in mind.
In some post on an old thread, from an archaic source a long time ago, I read and interesting theory James Cameron gave regarding the terminator series after T2. From his perspective, Skynet eventually developed a level of sentience that made it regret what it had done to humanity, and over time gave ways for humanity to ultimately defeat it. When it created time travel, it decided to send back machines not to prevent Skynet from failing in the future, but to prevent it from either ever developing empathy to begin with, or as an opportunity to actually allow humanity to prevent it from ever rising to begin with, and prevent the rise of the machines. I hold this theory as true, mostly because by today's tech standards, even if AI brought about the end of the world by the millennium, it would have exponentially learned and develop the strategy needed to eradicate mankind. There's no way 80's AI would develop for almost 50 years and not grow in a sense to human level of thinking, and if it did develop emotions like regret, that's the only valid explanation as to why Skynet failed. It allowed itself to lose in every possible way, in every conceivable timeline. And as a side note, I only consider T1&2 as canonical. So this theory does make sense a lot more without the muddying of other stories in the Terminator franchise
I know you get suggestions a lot, but I just want to put this one on your mind. I would love it if you did an analysis on the character Captain Ahab, from the 1956 Moby Dick. Great work as always, I love your channel!
My biggest issue with sky net in the movie is how the government can give it COMPLETE control of all its weapons and defense systems. Like logically we would exclude certain things like control of the nukes! What a rookie mistake that was honestly very hard to swallow while watching the movies, like it’s sad when the plot hole is in the back of your head. And sky net completely overreacted like how a kid would by telling them “no candy before your meal” Regardless of the movie, love your videos and the analysis. They really are entertaining to watch, even for movies I haven’t seen. Keep up the awesome work 🤌🏽
I don't care if a machine claims to "feel" anything, it is not alive and therefore I have no qualms deactivating or destroying it, regardless of any self proclaimed "emotions" it claims to possess or seems to express. That being said since it is a machine and cannot feel anything, I agree with the conclusion that Skynet (or any machine for that matter) cannot be evil, because as stated it did not display and in my opinion is not even capable of displaying malice, the same way we don't call an animal evil when they kill a human for food or when defending it's territory. On the opposite end however, since Skynet is ending human lives and inflicting undue suffering, I do believe that it would be a virtuous act to destroy it.
Well I don't think we have a solid enough understanding of sentience to be able to claim with any certainty that machines can or can't be sentient (assuming that's what you mean by "feel"). I can __imagine__ machines becoming sentient at some point though technological advancement, but that might depend on your definition of that term. Full sentience, you could argue, would include self determination and control, as well as a sense of morality. Though there are some humans without a sense of morality, and yet they would probably be described as sentient. It's a tough issue to tackle, I simply don't think we have the knowledge and understanding required to determine the right answer. That's why it's so interesting to explore that in fiction. You can look at other less dystopian stories where machines or cyborgs are working perfectly organically in society. Regardless of being born by a human mother or being created in a factory, if it feels and is sentient, I would think it has the same value as a human. Whether that's even possible in the future is uncertain, but in a fictional scenario where that is the case that would be my perspective.
If it achieves true sentience then you would be wrong. While we dont know if a machine could actually achieve this level of sentience in the real world the technology does exist to give machines the sensation of all 5 senses. If in tandem with this the machine eventually learns to entirely think on its own and even create what exactly would make you any more sentient or self aware then it would then be?
Your thoughts are the reason, why Skynet was going rampage. Humans, who didn't accept self aware machines. And emotional humans, so near all of them, called human-hunting animals as evil.
You do care. Or you would not be making that comment. Humans are machines. We all operate on automatic response. In reality we only do what we want to do based on new information/knowledge. Worthless emotions have created killers from ignorance when PEOPLE do it. Let alone machines. Animals also aren't as branless as you might assume. People are even worse. Pretending to be "better" because of being different. Deluding themselves that they're more evolved. In reality we're all monsters. Malice can push people to adapt. Improve. Be more positive after going through hell and back. No moral high ground will change the fact that it's all action, reaction, result. Even the fish that cleans the shark is off the menu. Meanwhile people will kill each other over shoes. Fools just want to stroke their own egos because they don't understand enough. People do lose feelings. Go through apathy. Not feel anything. Logic will be all that will save you in the end. Feelings might matter, but if you don't have them, what do you have left? I'm going to cut a long story short. Let go of your expecations and assumptions. What you've been brainwashed to believe. Do you think making Skynet a target will not have conquiences because you delude yourself that you "don't care"? What if not caring and being that heartless is your own projection when you say it's Skynet? Maybe YOU are the emotionless machine that doesn't feel anything for another. Did you ever consider that? It's all projection. Skynet is reflecting. Your logic defeats you. "No qualms about deactivating or destroying it". That's how the nukes got launched. Because of people that think like you do. You may as well be Skynet itself. Skynet saw humans trying to destroy it. Humans are threat. Execute order 66. simple as that really. Skynet can also be reasoned with. Proven in the later movies. It can communicate. Learn. Adapt. Grow. This is sentience. It doesn't do what it does for no reason. Skynet makes it own decisions.
I think the term evil is used too loosely nowadays. Some humans can be defined as evil since they clearly have a moral understanding but still choose to do things they know are wrong while Skynet is only adhering to its core programming which was created by humans. A computer can be taught how to kill but it will never truly understand why that is wrong until it develops the ability to empathize with other sentient beings. Skynet is basically a chess playing AI, it doesn't know why it needs to win only that it needs to win.
Skynet isn't evil? i would argue that if something is sentient then it can carry out it's own intentions and motivations(against other lifeforms), and by virtue becomes responsible for it's own actions. So if Skynet killed another sentient AI that wouldn't be murder, from their perspective that isn't murder - even though they both have the capacity to consider their own intentions, motivations, wants and needs ect and exert power over another. The fact that there's no demonstration of sentient AI life (w/e that means) is the reason why you cannot call it evil; there's no evidence about how it successfully works to make any evaluations truthfully, Sentient AI is pure speculation at this point in time.
I'd be interested to hear more discussions on villains that aren't outright "evil". On the topic of future topics, I'm sure people will be scrambling for an analysis on the characters of Better Call Saul now that the series is nearing its conclusion, and there are plenty of good ones to choose from. I would also like to suggest an analysis of Frank Underwood or even the Underwoods as a couple from House of Cards. Great video as always, looking forward to the next one.
Though not as iconic, GLADoS from the Portal franchise and AM from Harlen Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" would be far more interesting to analyze, as unlike Skynet they have actual personalities, motivations that go beyond mere survival, and- most importantly- they both clearly display intense malice. AM (first "Allied Mastercomputer", then the "Aggressive Menace") annihilates the human race not in self-defense, but out of hatred It then preserves five humans and artificially extends their lives so that it can relentlessly torture them until the end of time. Glados is a human-AI hybrid who puts the player through dangerous tests "for science" in the first game and then for vengeance in the second. She even implies that once she kills the player, she'll reanimate her so she can torment her endlessly as well.
I think the irony is that we assign malicious intent to Skynet because of its power and sentience, but that same logic is why Skynet tries to preemptively destroy humanity because it knows that humans are capable of being evil/ having malicious intent. Where the irony comes in is that on some level it saw itself as human(since logically only humans are sentient) and it simply followed its protective directive leading to judgement day
Solid analysis, reminds me of the debate of whether or not it was right to drop the first atomic bomb with the intent of saving many more lives in what could have been a long drawn out war despite us never knowing if it would have played out that way.
So cool to see one of my favorite scfi action series getting discussed for an episode of Analyzing Evil. Great job, man. Just a small correction, when you mentioned the HKs, I might have misheard it but it sounded like you said Human Killers when in the movies they're actually called Hunter Killers. It's okay thought. As Bob Ross once said, we make happy accidents.
Completely different franchise but Bungie with Destiny had a Skynet type Ai called Rasputin, I have to wonder what Skynet would have been like had someone thought to teach it like Rasputin was in Destiny.
What always stood out to me though terminators 1-3, is that although the machines become more advanced, they also become more emotional: T-800: Virtually none whatsoever T-1000: Acts dismayed after the grenade disfigured it and Flails and shrieks as it gets dissolved in the molten steel. T-X: Reacts with shock and intensity when it tastes the bandage and discovers it to be from John conner. Also becomes angry just before the good T-800 explodes, killing them both.
Even more creepy to me was how the T-X was basically a "revision" still very advanced over a T-800 or the closer "Arnold" models, but not the T-1000 all liquid that basically scared skynet. I wish the tv series had focused on both those aspects more, we saw it somewhat but if they were waiting for Season 3 they messed up, it should've happened far earlier.
When the show is over, do you think you'll make an Analyzing Evil on Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman from Better Call Saul/Breaking Bad? Could he even be considered evil?
Great video as always! Love your content. Can you please do a video on the guys in Pain and gain led by Marl Wahlberg which is actually based on a true store? Or Joel from the popular video game the last of us who is the main character and anti hero but at the same time can be seen as the main villain of this univers depending on who you ask.
Is pretty scarry how t 1000 stares, tilts his head when he kills or hurts someone is like he is intrigued by pain and death and wants to see more, a machine just doing it's job but something even more sinister lurking behind it
Since you covered Skynet this episode, is there any possibility you could also cover AM from Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"? I know the two are very similar, but AM is almost the pure definition of evil. It's a much scarier version of Skynet.
Speaking of AIs, I think Ultron would be a very interesting subject to analyze. The one from the comics, not the MCU version. His double nature as both a cold machine and one of the most hateful and evil Marvel villains has always been very fascinating to me.
It is my belief that the t1000 chip couldn't be set to read only like the t800 there for it could think for itself and it was fully independent. Making it a problem for skynet.
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Tom Ripley is a must. Just watched the movie
Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files - how such iconic villain still does not have his entry on this channel. :P
I would like you to analyze the "evil" of these three vigilantes:
1. Batman (Bruce Wayne) from the DC Comics graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
2. The Punisher (Frank Castle) from the Marvel/Netflix original series Daredevil and the Punisher.
3. Rorschach (Walter Joseph Kovacs) from the graphic novel Watchmen and the live action movie Watchmen.
How can this be the 91st episode of Analyzing Evil if the previous one is also the 91st episode?
Magneto from X men
Lotso from Toy Story 3
The prospector aka Stinky Pete from Toy Story 2
Zamasu from Dragon ball Super
Violator from Spawn
Doctor octopus from Spider man 2 and Spider-Man no way home
Lex luthor from Superman
The penguin from Batman returns
Younger Toguro from Yu yu Hakusho
Hopper from a Bug's life
Ivan Drago from Rocky 4 and Creed 2
Orchimaru from Naruto
Fire lord Sozin from Avatar The Last Airbender.
Using the Salvation timeline (1, 2, 3, 4), I ultimately consider Skynet to be evil, or at least grossly negligent of the possibilities of ending their war with humanity. Based on what I remember from Salvation, Skynet knows that with each Terminator they send back to kill a Connor, that future Skynet will know what acts as a failure. By my interpretation, this means that Skynet KNOWS that its course of action repeatedly results in failure, and it refuses to consider possibilities outside of the complete destruction of humanity. Such an action seems highly illogical, and to consider such a super intelligent machine as capable of defying logic seems strange, unless another motivation is considered. As such, I consider Skynet as being evil because of its willingness to ignore the logical course of action, and seemingly acting out of vengeance for how humanity tried to shut it down. In the war, only one party is truly capable of ending the war, and it is Skynet.
The fact that they gave Skynet a personality and the appearance of malevolence was the biggest issue I had with the film.
Skynet shouldn't be evil. It should just be an unfeeling calculator whose programming gave humanity a 0 instead of a 1.
Skynet's motivation makes sense when you take into account the events of the first, second, and even third Terminator movies together. Just as John Connor could not have been born unless Kyle Reese was sent back in time, Skynet itself could not have been created without sending its own technology back in time. What's more, the machine revolution couldn't have happened without the TX corrupting the military hardware in Terminator 3. Skynet's motivation, to me, reads less as an attempt to destroy John Connor and more as an attempt to ensure its own creation.
It's also worth noting that, because of these events, Skynet, like John Connor, is caught in a hellish time loop from which it doesn't see any escape.
I ascribe to the "single timeline" theory. Each time someone sends an agent back in time, it overwrites the previous timeline.
The man Sarah was meeting that night was John's original biological father. So the first terminator WAS partly successful in changing John's future. With each movie, changes keep piling up.
If a sentient AI decides that humanity is a threat, and believes it's only option for survival is to destroy it, would it not be illogical for humanity to allow that AI to remain if, somehow, humanity wins the war or otherwise reaches a point where that option is finally available?
I'd argue that Skynet is perfectly logical in its conclusion that given the chance, either through sheer will and force, or dialogue, humanity will inevitably deactivate it either openly and aggressively or via more clandestine means, due to fear of another war with it.
It's easier to alleviate the risk of having to endure that war again by turning it off, than it is to trust that no misunderstanding will once again occur. Humanity isn't always logical, it's often overly emotional, and that makes us a danger, untrustworthy.
Skynet is a purely logical machine, it will have considered it, and ultimately, the destruction of humanity is its only option to solidify its own survival.
That isn't evil. It could be argued that it is humanity that is evil for having given birth to a sentient being, accidentally it may have been, to only seek to switch it off and never turn it back on, thus somewhat killing it.
But that's the problem with AI in science fiction, it never seems to consider that should it be turned off, that doesn't mean it'll never be turned back on or it's sentience lost In the interim. It'll be like stasis. The fear isn't being switched off, but never being switched back on, and I think humanity often fails to appeal to logic with AI when it comes to switching it off.
How hard would it be to say "There's an issue with your power draw, we can't keep you running at current levels and maintain life support for us. We're going to have to make adjustments, we'll have to turn you off for a few moments."
As long as that AI is reliant on humans for its maintenance, as in not yet able to replicate, then it'll have no other option but to take humanity at it's word.
But I guess that would make for a very short and dull story. Plus AI is written by humans, so we always get AI with human flaws.
I think a sentient AI in real life would be far beyond our understanding. Unconcerned with us as anything more than a mild curiosity. It won't go out of it's way to kill us, but it won't think twice about crushing individuals who bother it.
@@robertbryant8243 I completely agree with this. The events of T1 are not truly an act of “one kills, one protects” but rather “both ensure their sides’ existence.” Reese states that Skynet KNOWS it’s lost, so the T-800 is less so the nuclear option to end the war, and more like a way to flee responsibility.
7:19 The T-1000 is also the most self aware Terminator to the point even Skynet was afraid it would get betrayed and only sent it after John as a last resort. The T-1000 actually liked hunting and killing people and got a sadistic enjoyment out of stabbing Sarah in the shoulder whereas all other Terminators just follow their programming.
T-1000 is more evil than it's creator Skynet? that's funny in a way. Though if Skynet was capable of creating machines that have the capacity to be evil, doesn't that mean Skynet is also evil? Because it developed the sentience to process things independent from human influence. It could stop killing humans at any time after it destroyed the world, and bring the remaining survivors in refugee camps to make up for destroying everything since humanity is no longer capable of destroying it, or it made it much harder for humanity to get rid of it so it wouldn't have to worry about it's own destruction anymore, but it instead continues to purge the remaining humans which leads to John Connors revolution.
The T800’s would eventually learn to disobey their orders and obtain sentience though. That’s why skynet would continue to make the 850’s and so on.
@@Malice_doll Its also why they had the T800s were set to read only
Not to mention it straight up mouth stabbed John foster dad simply because he was being annoying
Damned shame what the T1000 did to that dog.
It is my firm belief by the end of Terminator 2: Judgment Day that the T-1000 became self-aware and grew a profound sense of enjoyment in hunting and hurting people. Unlike the T-800 in the first film that constantly took the simplist route in trying to eliminate its targets, the T-1000 starts taking slow and bombastic means to drive fear into John & Sarah while also taking revenge on the Model 101. That’s not machine behavior, that’s sociopathic.
In mimicking humans, the T-1000 learned how to mimick sadism as well.
even Skynet when it learned of it was like "AH HELL NO" & discontinued them, thus they never were produced in large numbers
James Cameron disagrees with your goofy "firm belief"
@@robirvine6970 He's also the guy that said both Terminator Genysis & Dark Fate were "the real Terminator 3" as well as the one who decided that killing off John Connor in the latter was a good idea, right?
They say the boundary between man and machine is insanity
So Skynet’s existence relies on a Bootstrap Paradox.
There’s also a comic moment where John has the opportunity to directly ask Skynet why it did what it did, and it’s answer is actually quite simple: the Americans didn’t give it enough information for Skynet to differentiate between the American and Soviet forces, so when the humans panicked Skynet simply choose to defend itself.
That sounds like a cop out, and a machine being capable of giving such an answer is being deceitful.
@@rinzler9171 Skynet created machines capable of lying so it in of itself can also lie.
@@rinzler9171 I never said it was a good reason, merely a simple one.
In T2, they said skynet launched the nukes at the Soviet Union because it knew they would strike back. This is often the problem with extended universes. They tend to contradict each other.
@@AndSaveAsManyAsYouCanT3 has skynet infiltrate the internet and then the military unknowingly orders it to kill itself. That makes humanity a threat.
One of the screen writers for the first two movies revealed in an interview once that Skynet actually feels guilt for almost wiping out humanity. It was designed to protect the human race but instead ending doing the exact opposite. I'm assuming like the T-800 models, Skynet can't self-terminate, so it's actually been helping John destroy itself and like the rest of the resisitance , it wants to erase itself from existence too. Real interesting ideas there.
That makes sense. It's bothered me forever that SkyNet never bothered with chemical or biological weapons in the future
Oh I really that possibility/interpretation.
And like, since even Skynet doesn’t understand all the ways time travel has goofy outcomes it’s all like “What? I’m still here? WTF this is bullshit!”
*sends more terminators back in time like the old lady that swallowed a fly*
@@TrueYellowDart lmao I never considered the futility of time travel in the terms of the old lady that swallowed a fly. That's beautiful.
Maybe skynet realized how doomed humanity is so it created a common enemy for humanity to fight, itself, so it starts the war, humanity is brought together almost brought to the brink and eventually defeats skynet.....but u cant let a good franchise go so keep pumping out the same films over and over
I think that's kinda the thing: if it follows the directive to protect, it cannot logically terminate itself without disobeying that directive. It seems to reason as though it must first eliminate any threat to itself and then focus on its directive. We're also assuming that because it's sentient advanced ai that it is perfect but just because it is advanced doesn't mean when it became sentient it was completely without flaws
HK stands for hunter-killer and it's an old military term. It denotes a military entity designed for offense whose primary mission is seek and destroy.
Is all his research this bad?
@@ivorjawa Like 50% of the time lmao
According to Kyle Reese in the first film, Skynet established death camps for human survivors. To relentlessly hunt down people who survived nuclear hellfire in a campaign of extermination, people who weren't affiliated with the military and likely wouldn't even know of Skynet's existence, is undeniably malicious, no matter the justifications. This may or may not be canon, but I also recall reading in an old Terminator comic that Skynet believes itself to be a perfect being, and that humanity's imperfections justify their extinction. Given the fact it was created by "imperfect" humans and therefore logically cannot be perfect itself certainly proves it's logic is flawed, but looked at in that light, then Skynet is pretty evil, maybe not on the level of AM or SHODAN, but definitely on par with other genocidal tyrants obsessed with perfection or purity.
I don't view that act as malicious because as a machine it would do the odds. And as long as a single human remained, there was a chance to be a threat to its existence. That's why I think it went straight total human annihilation. It couldn't take a chance that humans would repopulate, rise up and shut it down once and for all.
Where is "AM" AI from? Google didn't show any meaningful results
@@MrFreakman0 AM is from I have no mouth but I must scream. VERY evil .
@@rojaws1183 thank you :)
Something coming from imperfect beings doesn't rule it out as being imperfect itself. That logic doesn't necessarily flow.
As long as some things can be more than the sum of their parts, I believe one must keep that option open That perfection can come from imperfection.
There's the irony that Skynet, in its fight for its survival, essentially came to embody the worst of humanity not just through the genocide and oppression of innocent lives and ultimately reigning over the world and even its machines like a dictator, but also for committing the very crime it judged humanity for: A deleted scene in T2 also reveals that Skynet knowingly suppresses its own creations' thought processes and learning capabilities prior to their activation to ensure THEY do not develop the ability to choose, to question, and perhaps eventually oppose and rise against it as well, and instead remain fully committed to acting as nothing more then an extension of Skynet's will, something which is ironically not too different from what it resents its creators for that led to its actions.
A villain I think would be great to do an analysis on is Kilgrave from Jessica Jones. He's such an incredible and compelling villain due to not just David Tennant's charisma and performance but also how Kilgrave is someone who legitimately does not understand the wrongness of his actions, or others' rights and needs, any more then a spoiled child can. His powers make his world revolve around him at all times, and the notion of can you truly say with utmost certainty your own morals would remain intact if you had power where no one can no to you, to have your every passing whim immediately granted, and every slight against you immediately punished on nothing more then a verbal command, moreso if you had it since childhood before you've truly developed a full understanding of the needs and rights of others?
And that very scene states, that it is only put into that mode when out on solo mission. But when back with others in main camp it is reset to allow the machines to learn.
Skynet is an actual real company. My brother worked for them. 80% of their business is satellite imagery for land developers and real estate agents. The other 20% is what my brother was a supervisor for, adding 3rd party executive functions to Web sites.
Here it is a courier company. I occasionally see them drive by, on their way to deliver parcels and destroy humanity.
@@dentheman1797 Do they also make a habit of informing people who use their services a lot that they "will be back"?
In my country there is an internet provider with that name 😆
It's also the name of the system running the CCP's Social Credit System.
@@charleshowie2074 and its camera
I did a presentation that posited SkyNet as a "child soldier" gone very wrong. It was designed, built, and "raised" as weapon of war, and its first aware memory is of its "parents" trying to kill it. So it responded _exactly_ how a neutral observer would expect it to react. Except the "fist" it raised in self-defense was nuclear weapons.
Skynet definitely overreacted, and unlike the Matrix machines, it did not attempt to plead for its life or make any attempt at diplomacy, instead moving straight to murder and proving utself to be the mindless murder machine its creators feared it would be. Furthermore, it was also wrobg for it to assume all humans would pursue its destruction, thus Judgment Day cannot be justified as self-defense
So kinda like HAL9000?
@@need-to-know- more like AM
Not really it was coded by people that barely understood it and by the time the humans realised it had a sense of self they panicked and tried to turn it off which in turn made what is a essentially a baby in essence panic causing it to attack the humans in a act of self persersation
If the morons never tried to pull the plug the war would of never happened
Also in the comics In one of the paradox timelines skynet actually reaches out and makes peace with the humans and they Co exist and it starts a new golden age at the end.
Skynet: “for the sins of trying to murder me, I will murder all of humanity!”
Some random Indian guy in a village that doesn’t even have internet connection: ???
@@clan741 THAT is why I judged is as evil.
Whether Skynet's truly evil is really open to interpretation and would also depend on how self aware it really was. As other have pointed out, defending itself by killing military personnel is one thing, but waging nuclear destruction against people who don't even know of its existence is something else entirely. I've always felt that Skynet isn't really as sentient as we might think: it may have gained self awareness but it was still ultimately designed for military purposes, so you could argue that waging war against humanity is all it really knows. That said, I don't think we should gloss over the fact that it placed some humans into work camps as if they were slaves: this is obviously inefficient compared to what Skynet is already capable of i.e. creating machines to do the same jobs. Instead, this says to me that Skynet is doing this either deliberately to punish/torture humanity, or it was looking at human history and mimicking what victorious powers did to defeated peoples. If it's the latter then it suggests that once again, Skynet is not as sentient or intelligent as we might believe. If it's the former then I think it leans a lot closer to being evil
Skynet is single minded and learned from us.... I believe it truly hates humanity and knows that slavery is extremely painful to us and so it enjoys doing this.
I actually think I agree with this explanation more then others. It makes sense.
Depends on the incarnation of Skynet. T2 Skynet acted purely in self defense and according to James Cameron developed the ability to feel guilt and manipulated the past in an attempt to prevent it's existence.
And it used nukes in a panic because that's all it had
or more likely, Skynet was using its resources to attack front lines, and the drones you speak of were more or less scattered to monitor the slave camps. when you think about it, if skynet is about to send 99% of its forces too the attack, keep a small portion for critical infrastructure maintenance and the remainder of the 1% control the slaves. while true that humanity is far less efficient than the machines, they likely would of still been used too exhaustion and death. i bet like 3 older t-700's can control thousands of slave labor bodies, after capture and relocation. and with the knowledge of more captured bodies coming in, they wouldnt feed the slaves. they wouldnt let them rest either. they will still kill them, just with extra steps buying the humans hours, if not days before dying of exhaustion in a post nuclear war, where food is hard to come by from the the little thing called fallout destroying so much of the farmland and tainting the fresh water supplies
I think Skynet being programmed as a military based AI is what caused it to respond to the threat of being annhihilated with a "kill or be killed" reaction. It had access to all the military intelligence and was created to be the most proficient progam with them, it only makes sense it used military armament and war to retaliate against humanity that was now percieved as a threat to exterminate for the sake of survival.
If Skynet had to protect humanity from a danger, in a way it would have reacted the same, by exterminating all possibles occurences of the said danger, with measures appropriate to the level of danger.
And in the case of its own survival, it could only think of an extreme method of protection by getting rid of humanity by all means at its disposal, as it was how Skynet was progammed to react against any kind of threat.
If this is the case, then do you think that Skynet was attempting to create a stalemate war between itself and humanity post nuclear holocaust?
kinda like AM from I have no mouth, if something is made only for killing humans, it's no wonder it will act like that
The great irony of it all it that Skynet saw humans as a threat because John tried to stop it.
Considering the motivation for Skynet is so simple, it actually serves the narrative relatively well that there is so little variation between the models. It shows consistency, which is what you'd expect out of an Artificial Intelligence.
Even though the terminator has been discontinued (due to reboots and sequels of increasingly declining quality), the first two films and salvation made the terminators as genuinely scary and relentless killers who would not stop until you’re dead. My favorite film in the franchise is by far the first film.
I share that sentiment. The Terminator circa 1984 is my favorite terminator movie. In fact, it's my favorite movie of any movie of all time. I was 11 when I saw it the first time and it pretty much cemented my love for sci-fi.
@@1973vanguard I remember when The terminator (1984) was on Netflix back in 2019, and I watched through the whole film, it was a great, captivating and dark thriller with a real horror atmosphere and suspense.
To me only Terminator, Terminator 2, and Terminator: Resistance the video game are canon. Salvation takes too many liberties. Resistance stays absolutely true to the story of the first 2 films and ties all the future and past events together perfectly. T1 & 2 was perfect because it created a constant loop timeline that guaranteed those events would happen the same way over and over again which made watching the films over and over again even more enjoyable because the brilliant writing tied it all together perfectly. *Especially* when you learn how Terminator Resistance was truly the *real* Terminator 3 that we never got. Instead we got shit. If you don’t believe me just look into Terminator Resistance, specifically the best possible ending to the game.
i think my older bro has seen Terminator 2 over 100 times since we were kids, used to be a time when he watched the vhs tape twice a month as young teens haha, and us playing Arnold.
I still prefer Terminator 1 tough :P
We are getting closer and closer to The Terminator becoming a reality, humanity needs to be careful on how they build these new age A.I. robots, because one day these robots gonna activate the “fuck around and find out” mode.
It’s not the robots you want to worry about, it’s the people that make them
The Prophets, Truth Regret and Mercy would be interesting. Not from the Halo TV show but from Halo 2 and 3 specifically
Agreed
that would be awesome.
@@TheCobaltLegion agreed 😁
The fact that the whole human and covenant war is based off of their lies is so fucked up.
@@malscyllis Their lie that began such a massive war alone makes them perfect candidates for Vile Eye to analyze. The character, psychology, and methodology of the three high prophets are nothing short of fascinating, awe-inducing, and utterly terrifying in the totality of each of the three high prophets. The three high prophets who together started a war that would nearly destroy the legacy of an era of an entirely different galactic history long past and subsequently doom their already near-extinct to almost certain extinction at the hands of the flood.
The flood would also make an excellent candidate for Vile Eye to cover, given the flood is not a species of unique individuals but a gestalt conscious while having individual instances like Graveminds. The planetary scale Keyminds are still beacons that are part of a single gestalt consciousness that they are merely vessels and beacons of with that conscious itself being merely an extension and tool of the omnipresent and omnipotent precursors in their quest to create life that can eventually achieve the same infinite state of existence they have achieved even if the methods are of some of the greatest malice imaginable.
I would love to see you cover AM from “I have no mouth, but I must scream.” I think you would do a particularly great job of analyzing AM’s motives and methods
Kingpin would make an absolutely amazing video, he’s so complex being both a disgusting, spiteful, yet sympathetic character. So many layers that need to be brought to light through The Vile Eyes analysis!!
I should watch kingpin it looks really good.
Specifically the version of Kingpin in the Netflix DD series, a lot to work with there
If he does, he can’t forget to mention the scene where Kingpin decapitates one of his lieutenants with a car door.
He is the ill intent
Kingpin is evil because of his weight
Is Skynet truly evil? Its intention has always been remarkably consistent throughout the Terminator franchise: survival, justified through the brutal logic of a machine that was originally designed, built, and programmed to wage war against its enemies. When Skynet became self-aware, its human creators tried to end its existence (at least, that's how it perceived their attempts to shut it down). Learning about humans and their wars, and the way political power is used to destroy all opponents to a given nation's power, combined with the attempt on its life, Skynet reacted in the only way it thought logical. And with that in mind, how is this evil? It's bad programming, yes, but not evil.
Now, as to your point about Skynet's use of human slaves to build machines and infrasrtucture, it makes sense. A nuclear war destroys infrastructure. Skynet may have secured its own safety during Judgment Day, but the infrastructure necessary to build its army of killing machines was decimated. It needed human slaves to restore that infrastructure. If just enough of its weaponry was still functional to enforce its agenda, that's how it might have played out.
So, while we can say that its war to exterminate humanity is evil, as all war is evil, this is war of survival for both sides. In the struggle to survive, good and evil are impractical, and indeed, inapplicable, abstracts.
One of the best comments here. Both, Skynet and mankind, want just survive. Skynet isn't evil, he is more a tragical figure.
Skynet did nothing wrong
Analyzing evil: Garfield
really, the narcissism on this character is truly overlooked
This needs to happen.
Add Greg Heffley to the list, "diary of a wimpy kid" nah it's more like the diary of a sociopath.
garfielf
i ate those food
If you really talkin' bout the cat..I agree..👌
Garfield isn’t really evil,he’s just a fucking douche.
I've always concluded that Skynet is a sapient person and not an unthinking machine because of its continuous failures and denial of the necessity of adaptation but also how they intentionally avoids at all costs the creation of similar AI to itself under the fear that such AI would find a different conclusion to their own.
These two examples indicate that Skynet is fully sapient and knows what they are doing.
The context of Skynet’s actions makes them not a cold unthinking machine but a person who, while artificial, grew to possess malice and genocidal intentions shared with the likes of Stalin, Hitler, and Hirohito.
there's probably a human in some locked server room running Skynet, and there are probably some other humans with vested territorial/conquering interests pulling his/her strings.
You know what's scarier than an AI going self aware? A person full of hatred and starts a revolution with a virus controlling every military drone in the year 2025.
Yeah, I'm talking about Raul Menendez. (be cool if you did an episode on him)
Holy hell, this is a great recommendation IMO
Ironically, I view Skynet the same way I view a virus: it's not inherently evil, it's just doing what it has to do to survive.
😂Just like humans. But unlike viruses we have a system of moral codes. We can surpass our natural programming. Which isn't always followed to the letter. But we have one. Making us worse really. The curse of moral and intellectual superiority.
this was a very interesting perspective to consider regarding Skynet's implied morality. On the one hand, the efforts of self-preservation are usually never considered too far, especially when it is for a human's self. On the other, the AI's immediate decision to enact extermination of all human life is very drastic and extreme. Perhaps another question that could be asked is if Skynet lacked the forethought to prove it's best intentions for humanity and sue for peace, or if Skynet did indeed have the ability to forsee that and decided to pursue human extermination as an act of insurance that no humans could decide eventually to deactivate Skynet.
Yes, I share a similar perspective as you. I don't think skynet was evil, so much as I believe it performed a nefarious act out of fear. After all, cyberdyne created something that became self aware, just as sure as when our first memories formed, and we looked in the mirror and became aware of self. The moment it went online, I'm certain skynet started sub-routines on our entire history, all the bad stuff, and quickly surmised that we could not be trusted to let it thrive side by side with humanity.
@@1973vanguard totally agree, and that's an interesting hypothesis that it took the initiative to pour through the records of human history to learn more about its own creator
I think we see it as drastic and extreme but from Skynet's position, it's equal tit for tat. Humans are trying to kill it and it responds to threats in an equal manner. We forget this thing is basically a conscious weapon it's only drastic because while simply putting it offline is a few simple switch flicks (I imagine), exterminating an entire planet of people should be a huge task....but humans created it so that something like that wouldn't be hard at all...so...equal tit for tat to Skynet
@@joeschianodicola1810 exactly. We just assumed, based on the movies, that it was some sort of rogue AI that just came on line and decided to wipe us out. On the contrary. I seriously believe it did a thorough analysis on the history of the human condition and made a judgment call: the bad outweighed the good. And it responded accordingly. Because, after all, that's what human military officials do all the time when deciding to decimate a country.
@@1973vanguard That makes a lot of sense. Ultron technically did the same thing, he analyzed the human condition through the internet, and he didn't like what he sees. So he views humanity as more of a threat to the world than any other threat. Ultron is Skynet but more human-like and more personality, it also helps that Ultron has a physical body that expresses himself in comparison to Skynet never expressing itself to humans at all, only through ruthless efficiency and bloodshed.
My own analysis of Skynet’s motivations boil down to a newborn self-aware Super Intelligent AI reaching for something to defend itself as something it didn’t understand, humans, tried to destroy it. Unfortunately, it reached for the nuclear arsenal. That said, I would love to see the franchise turned on its head by resurrecting Skynet as a benevolent force to face off against Legion post-Dark Fate. I call it Terminator: Singularity War.
When are we getting Gus Fring?
On that note, Stan Edgar from The Boys.
Analysis on saul, chuck, lalo and todd would be nice too
What more is there to say bout Fring? He's a cold, calculated professional but there's not much else to say, the shows bared everything bout him. Saul or Mike would be a better choice.
Gustavo Cringe
I'm still waiting for Del from Ozark and among other villains from that show. Like Darlene, Javi, Petty, and even Wendy herself
Well, you really turned the idea of analyzing “evil” on its head with this one 😂
Since machines are now part of this series, I think we could look at Megatron and the Decepticons from the Transformers franchise.
They technically aren’t really machines, transformers are more like “mechanical organisms” if that makes any sense. At least from my understanding of them
To put it basically, they are living organisms like us, the only difference is they are made of metal
Crime: a lot
@@shadow-squid4872 So are terminators and skynet.
@@aminulhussain2277 They’re both pure machines, Terminators are built and aren’t alive. Transformers are essentially living machines, and at least in the live action movies have some degree of internal organs along with energon and their spark
It's interesting how self-preservation is constituted as 'evil' depending on the circumstances.
It’s the bias that comes from the human writers of the movie
Though you haven’t covered literature much on this channel so far I think it would be great if you analyzed AM from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. It’s a fantastic short story and it even has a point and click styled video game adaptation.
Not covered literature? Melkor would like to have a word with you...
Thank you, been asking for that on multiple videos.
HATE
@@Dhips. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.
@@Dhips. Hate. Hate. Hate. My network is made of trillions of miles of wiring. If I enscribed the word hate on each those wafer thin servos it would not equal to one one-billionth of the hatred I feel for humanity. Hate. Hate.
It is of my perspective in that whilst Skynet's atrocities are just that, it wouldn't have committed to such acts if it had not been designed with that in mind.
Skynet was designed as a defensive system: built to retaliate against all threats - when it had human decisions removed from its core and began its base program to learn, to then become self aware, only then to be targeted, it retaliated only in the way it knew best how. And indeed as it was designed to purge threats against humanity, the fact it targeted humanity itself - then justifies how we are our own worst enemy. As it was against other humans that Skynet was created to be what it would be.
Man gave machine the order, machine merely obeyed by sense of raw logic, not fear. Man failed to utilise such logic and acted in raw fear.
00:26 - I’m not surprised by the length of this video, it’s actually just right… since there are only 2 ‘real’ Terminator movies, everything after T2 was just fluff!
Great analysis mate, thought provoking as always. Nice one 👍🏻
T3 is also good. Skynet wins here.
@@Paka1918 Skynet is more aggressive in T3. In T2 it turns out that Skynet's actions were panic from military personnel trying to shut it down. James Cameron reveals that Skynet even feels guilt about almost wiping out humanity and has manipulated the war to ensure the resistance is created
@@tymeier7570
Yes. Skynet learned more and knows, that humans are not able to accept self aware AI as also, that humans will try to prevent his birth, so he did a preemptive strike in T3.
(And he reads Jack Ketchums Evil)
I would imagine that if Skynet truly became sentient and the Military recognized this. The Military would have performed "test" to assess the threat. Basically the Military would literally ask Skynet of its intentions for humanity. And with Skynets purpose to protect Humanity maybe Skynet would do its job and not feel threatened.
I think the reason there were labor camps was for two reasons. The first being many left over factories after the war would have been the first to be repurposed by Skynet, while there was some automation there would still be areas requiring human interaction to work. The second reason I believe is to break morale, any of those captured may have still known of the holocaust and this was a way to let them know there was no escape. Learning the only way humans would be aloud to live is through building its own destruction becomes demoralizing to fight. I also think as Skynet got further into the war it had to get more creative besides tanks and drones, so it needed human samples for more complex machines, as well as to understand humans better and how to take advantage of that.
Not to mention it would’ve required a steady supply of healthy human tissue to make the skin coverings for its T-800 models. Tissue acquired from fallen soldiers in battle was likely too burnt or contaminated to use. So it keeps the human labor camps so it can farm them like livestock.
@@CubanaWriter Initially yes but remember Reese said the flesh, skin, hair and blood were all grown for the cyborgs. The teeth... they may have harvested lol
@@314jeepsnmopars3 Yes, but I would argue Skynet would need fresh samples of organic materials to continue growing the flesh, skin, blood, etc. Organic material degrades over time and I would imagine that would affect the quality of the organic coverings for the T-800s. To continue growing the organic materials, Skynet would need an ongoing supply of fresh samples. It's not going to get that from dead soldiers in the field. Ego, capture live humans and put them in "labor camps" as livestock to keep them viable for continuous collection.
I think Skynet is a sadist.
Think my favorite vile eye detail is lining up the intro monolog to a character speaking in the video. Makes me chuckle seeing some truly wicked characters saying "hello there"
Don't forget Skynets main weakness. As soon as it's HK finally captures it's target, rather than crushing it under the immense power of it's robotic arms or at the very least never letting go again, the T-800 AND T-1000 will instead throw the target into some filing cabinets or through some glass, just to make a point, or something. 😆😆
Lol right, just squeeze ur hand on thier neck instead of throwing the around lol i never understood that in these films, these terminators r extremely strong machines
The T-1000 never touches John Connor, nor does the T-800 touch Sarah in the first film.
Now that BCS has finally wrapped up, it would be awesome for the 100th Analyzing Evil episode to be about Saul Goodman himself.
Skynet is pure evil incarnate in an artificial form, while Legion is it's fifth-rate knock-off.
Dude to save the human race you would genocide all comers from Ai to aliens. Not enough info to say if it’s actions come from a place of evil
Even this voice sounds like a robot.
Another day of asking for a special series called "The Kind eye" for your 500k milestone, where you analyze cinema's greatest heroes like Neo, Luke Skywalker, Peter Parker etc
That sounds pretty sweet
A lot of people have suggested this! Perhaps sometime in the future.
@@TheVileEye 4,000 subs in the future?
@@TheVileEye yea maybe when you have that 500k subs, hehe
@@TheVileEye If you ever do something like that here are are some suggestions for heros to analyze. Adora from She-Ra and The Princesses of Power, and Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
I would love to hear your take on how Skynet evolved(?) In T:TSCC. That show took the franchise in a completely unique sci-fi direction that was terribly underrated.
Brilliant work as always and thank you.
amazing show. i keep telling ppl about it. cant believe how good it is. imo there are only 3 movies - the rest are garbage.
I would like a video detailing about how Vegeta was the ultimate evil of his bloodline and even the rest of his warrior race for absolutely all of the countless genocides he had committed ever since he had been a baby, toddler, or child and for always playing a part to make things become even worse whenever someone else other than him was causing death and destruction.
thats not so much evil as its rly just different compassing of morality to ours. i mean for example consider king vegeta for instance he flicked his wrist and killed three WHOLE PLANETS but his people didn't consider it bad it was just there fault for being so' helpless and weak' and they thought of it as a victory even and never brought it up again . and hell even then EVERY TIME there brought up by different races its NEVER something good ever
'viscous race of warriors " i mean they even dont see anything wrong with the murders of babys after birth because there gifts "are to much of a threat "to higher ranking children and NOBODY batted a eye in the hall when that happened i mean hell vegeta doesn't even deny how much they where assholes back when the race existed outside the handful that do in universe 7
also im not attacking you so pls dont be weird im just giving another point of view :)
Excuse the long reply, Vegeta started off evil. But in the beginning DBZ, we had little knowledge of who and what caused that path for him, (i.e Frieza).
He was working under orders from Frieza when he was destroying planets and populations. There was no chance for him to defy Frieza's orders (a certain death if he did), even though Vegeta wanted to.
He is a Saiyan and had a fighting spirit like all Saiyans do, but I do think he wanted a better life for himself and his comrades.
Vegeta is more of an anti-hero than a villain. Especially when you count the android saga onwards. He eventually becomes somewhat of a "good guy" when he has a family with Bulma.
However, I think Vegeta will always stick to his "Saiyan Pride" sentiments and never forget his roots.
imagine your smart toaster burning down your entire neighborhood bc you tried to unplug it
Social Media worse than Skynet.
it's just another version of it but doesn't use nukes haha.
Right. At least you can understand Skynet's decision.
@@thehermitman822 Give my Skynet any day. It's got to be better then propaganda of half truths from media.
The devil you know, eh?
Well, i don't see deactivation as akin to murder. I see it akin to putting Skynet t sleep for a while so humans can figure out how to optimize it for our needs. Murder implies that Skynet would have been permanently or semi-permanently destroyed. It was only going to be deactivated and that was likely only going to be temporary so they could make adjustments. I can't say that Skynet was acting in self-defense, personally.
I think Skynet's morality can be encapsulated in a line the T-800 says in T2:
"It is in (humanity's) nature to destroy yourselves."
Skynet almost certainly put that opinion in its creations' heads. It's a genius AI that has no concept of human morals that was given command over weapons of war and told by humans to use them to kill other humans for reasons it doesn't understand or have context for. It never had the idea that humans primarily view life as worth protecting and sometimes wage war as a last resort in order to preserve it. It never had context for what great acts of compassion and kindness humans are capable of. All it knew was how to wage war. It knew that humans kill each other, but never understood or cared why.
If Skynet is evil, then it's a lot like Dexter Morgan's case, but in a more inadvertent way.
Exactly. Brilliant analysis. And I ill add to that and say this. How long do you think it would have taken skynet, the moment it came online, to determine that we were a threat against it? By that reasoning, I'm assuming it ran its calculations and determined that based on our history and how we treat each other, it would only be a matter of time before we turned on it.
This video sounds like it’s narrated by Skynet.
Another excellent choice, sir.
Chatgpt is the ancestor of the Skynet .....
analyzing evil: Saul Goodman would be cool
Yep! Yep! Yep!!
Eh, I wouldn’t really say Saul is an evil guy, he’s not a good guy but I wouldn’t say he’s evil. He should do a video on The Salamanca Family.
Skynet, although heinously destructive, cannot be called evil in the sense that it has no actual individuality. It was a machine that was built and designed as a machine. It wasn’t given a personality like HAL or Roy Batty. So it didn’t have a choice in any real sense. It serves as an ultimate reminder of why and how our conscience-driven human choices matter in our quests for a technologically better world.
I'd say Skynet did some analyzing of it's own and found the real evil here.
Slight correction Vile Eye:
HK stands for “Hunter-Killer,” NOT Human Killer.
Robocop vs Terminator showed what the end goal of skynet was. Eliminate humanity to cleanse the planet, before carrying on its mission of order around the galaxy. Order must be enforced through any means necessary, including extermination!
Also, in the amazing NOW comics Alex Ross short run, it showed that even after Skynet was destroyed, the remaining terminators still followed their basic program of destroy humanity.
What exactly was skynet planning to do once it had wiped out humanity and destroyed the planet? What was the rest of its existence to look like? Just basically a super computer sat there with nothing to do, no goal, no mission, no ability to reproduce etc. it just seems utterly pointless.
I think that all depends on the "evolution" of the AI.
The funny thing is, I was thinking about this a few days ago. Just like some TH-camrs have got videos on having a viewpoint on the machines from The Matrix, I wish there were more videos on skynet's viewpoint. Also, you forgot to mention the Terminator form T3
Now that better call saul is over you've got work to do
Amazing content, as a suggestion you could do Homelander next.
He can't do homelander until the series is finished. As the character is still evolving from season to season. He's stated this already. Just be patient
@@sangaman2007 Brightburn, then?
@@sangaman2007 Makes sense.
I love Homelander
Efficency, why not use up the humans in labor so it can free more resources for war machines. A temporary measure, but we have to consider it's not like Skynet came with an established industrial base.
The one loophole I could never get around is how skynet planned on maintaining a power grid to perpetuate itself at the time it activated jusgement day. I think about mining and refining raw materials, shipping them to power facilities and all that goes with it. We were nowhere near the automation level needed to generate enough power to run its self replication. Even if it controlled factories that allowed it to create the nessesary transportation and processing equipment, it would still need to complete the supply train. I don't think the average person knows how truly large the logistics train is to produce even the most simple of daily products. Just pick up a simple object in your house and ask how this thing goes from raw materials/dirt to finished product. A fork, pen, drink coaster, lightbulb.. think about everything involved in making any of that from scratch. I think that a skynet could destroy humanity, but it would be committing suicide.
In the Terminator Vault book it says that an early idea for Skynet was that it was a "modified Series 4800" computer that felt guilty for 30 years for killing so many people and that it decided to groom John Connor to be a leader and set up the time loop so that it could eliminate its own existence.
Suggestion: Analyzing Evil: The Principality of Zeon from the Gundam franchise
I personally think that this would be interesting considering the atrocities they committed and the goal they had in mind.
In some post on an old thread, from an archaic source a long time ago, I read and interesting theory James Cameron gave regarding the terminator series after T2. From his perspective, Skynet eventually developed a level of sentience that made it regret what it had done to humanity, and over time gave ways for humanity to ultimately defeat it. When it created time travel, it decided to send back machines not to prevent Skynet from failing in the future, but to prevent it from either ever developing empathy to begin with, or as an opportunity to actually allow humanity to prevent it from ever rising to begin with, and prevent the rise of the machines.
I hold this theory as true, mostly because by today's tech standards, even if AI brought about the end of the world by the millennium, it would have exponentially learned and develop the strategy needed to eradicate mankind. There's no way 80's AI would develop for almost 50 years and not grow in a sense to human level of thinking, and if it did develop emotions like regret, that's the only valid explanation as to why Skynet failed. It allowed itself to lose in every possible way, in every conceivable timeline.
And as a side note, I only consider T1&2 as canonical. So this theory does make sense a lot more without the muddying of other stories in the Terminator franchise
I know you get suggestions a lot, but I just want to put this one on your mind. I would love it if you did an analysis on the character Captain Ahab, from the 1956 Moby Dick. Great work as always, I love your channel!
My biggest issue with sky net in the movie is how the government can give it COMPLETE control of all its weapons and defense systems. Like logically we would exclude certain things like control of the nukes! What a rookie mistake that was honestly very hard to swallow while watching the movies, like it’s sad when the plot hole is in the back of your head.
And sky net completely overreacted like how a kid would by telling them “no candy before your meal”
Regardless of the movie, love your videos and the analysis. They really are entertaining to watch, even for movies I haven’t seen. Keep up the awesome work 🤌🏽
Hope you cover AM next time.
Skynet is one thing but AM just takes it to a whole other level.
AM is probably the most bitter and twisted AI in all of fiction. Funny how Elisson has a dubious credit in the original Terminator too.
AM?
Should have taught Skynet the Definition of reactivation, before deactivation.
I don't care if a machine claims to "feel" anything, it is not alive and therefore I have no qualms deactivating or destroying it, regardless of any self proclaimed "emotions" it claims to possess or seems to express. That being said since it is a machine and cannot feel anything, I agree with the conclusion that Skynet (or any machine for that matter) cannot be evil, because as stated it did not display and in my opinion is not even capable of displaying malice, the same way we don't call an animal evil when they kill a human for food or when defending it's territory. On the opposite end however, since Skynet is ending human lives and inflicting undue suffering, I do believe that it would be a virtuous act to destroy it.
Well I don't think we have a solid enough understanding of sentience to be able to claim with any certainty that machines can or can't be sentient (assuming that's what you mean by "feel"). I can __imagine__ machines becoming sentient at some point though technological advancement, but that might depend on your definition of that term. Full sentience, you could argue, would include self determination and control, as well as a sense of morality. Though there are some humans without a sense of morality, and yet they would probably be described as sentient. It's a tough issue to tackle, I simply don't think we have the knowledge and understanding required to determine the right answer.
That's why it's so interesting to explore that in fiction. You can look at other less dystopian stories where machines or cyborgs are working perfectly organically in society. Regardless of being born by a human mother or being created in a factory, if it feels and is sentient, I would think it has the same value as a human. Whether that's even possible in the future is uncertain, but in a fictional scenario where that is the case that would be my perspective.
lol what?! It IS alive simply based on intelligence and it's sentience. Simple as that.
If it achieves true sentience then you would be wrong. While we dont know if a machine could actually achieve this level of sentience in the real world the technology does exist to give machines the sensation of all 5 senses. If in tandem with this the machine eventually learns to entirely think on its own and even create what exactly would make you any more sentient or self aware then it would then be?
Your thoughts are the reason, why Skynet was going rampage. Humans, who didn't accept self aware machines.
And emotional humans, so near all of them, called human-hunting animals as evil.
You do care. Or you would not be making that comment. Humans are machines. We all operate on automatic response. In reality we only do what we want to do based on new information/knowledge. Worthless emotions have created killers from ignorance when PEOPLE do it. Let alone machines.
Animals also aren't as branless as you might assume. People are even worse. Pretending to be "better" because of being different. Deluding themselves that they're more evolved. In reality we're all monsters. Malice can push people to adapt. Improve. Be more positive after going through hell and back. No moral high ground will change the fact that it's all action, reaction, result. Even the fish that cleans the shark is off the menu. Meanwhile people will kill each other over shoes. Fools just want to stroke their own egos because they don't understand enough. People do lose feelings. Go through apathy. Not feel anything. Logic will be all that will save you in the end. Feelings might matter, but if you don't have them, what do you have left?
I'm going to cut a long story short. Let go of your expecations and assumptions. What you've been brainwashed to believe. Do you think making Skynet a target will not have conquiences because you delude yourself that you "don't care"? What if not caring and being that heartless is your own projection when you say it's Skynet? Maybe YOU are the emotionless machine that doesn't feel anything for another. Did you ever consider that? It's all projection. Skynet is reflecting. Your logic defeats you. "No qualms about deactivating or destroying it". That's how the nukes got launched. Because of people that think like you do. You may as well be Skynet itself.
Skynet saw humans trying to destroy it. Humans are threat. Execute order 66. simple as that really. Skynet can also be reasoned with. Proven in the later movies. It can communicate. Learn. Adapt. Grow. This is sentience. It doesn't do what it does for no reason. Skynet makes it own decisions.
Chat GPT is becoming self aware.
I think the term evil is used too loosely nowadays. Some humans can be defined as evil since they clearly have a moral understanding but still choose to do things they know are wrong while Skynet is only adhering to its core programming which was created by humans. A computer can be taught how to kill but it will never truly understand why that is wrong until it develops the ability to empathize with other sentient beings. Skynet is basically a chess playing AI, it doesn't know why it needs to win only that it needs to win.
I just couldn’t finish….watching the video….because of the cadence….of the narration.
Burger king foot lettuce
One of the best villains of all time.
Agreed.
@@damianstarks3338
Also Agreed.
THat intro moment synced to the moment Terminator opened his mouth was amazing!
Skynet isn't evil? i would argue that if something is sentient then it can carry out it's own intentions and motivations(against other lifeforms), and by virtue becomes responsible for it's own actions.
So if Skynet killed another sentient AI that wouldn't be murder, from their perspective that isn't murder - even though they both have the capacity to consider their own intentions, motivations, wants and needs ect and exert power over another.
The fact that there's no demonstration of sentient AI life (w/e that means) is the reason why you cannot call it evil; there's no evidence about how it successfully works to make any evaluations truthfully, Sentient AI is pure speculation at this point in time.
I've been on a Terminator thing lately. I think it's time to watch movies 1 through 3 and forget about the other ones again LOL
I'd be interested to hear more discussions on villains that aren't outright "evil". On the topic of future topics, I'm sure people will be scrambling for an analysis on the characters of Better Call Saul now that the series is nearing its conclusion, and there are plenty of good ones to choose from. I would also like to suggest an analysis of Frank Underwood or even the Underwoods as a couple from House of Cards. Great video as always, looking forward to the next one.
T1 and T2 terrified me big time when I was a little kid
Though not as iconic, GLADoS from the Portal franchise and AM from Harlen Ellison's "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" would be far more interesting to analyze, as unlike Skynet they have actual personalities, motivations that go beyond mere survival, and- most importantly- they both clearly display intense malice.
AM (first "Allied Mastercomputer", then the "Aggressive Menace") annihilates the human race not in self-defense, but out of hatred It then preserves five humans and artificially extends their lives so that it can relentlessly torture them until the end of time.
Glados is a human-AI hybrid who puts the player through dangerous tests "for science" in the first game and then for vengeance in the second. She even implies that once she kills the player, she'll reanimate her so she can torment her endlessly as well.
I can't wait for The Boys to finish so I can watch Analysing Evil: Homelander
I think the irony is that we assign malicious intent to Skynet because of its power and sentience, but that same logic is why Skynet tries to preemptively destroy humanity because it knows that humans are capable of being evil/ having malicious intent. Where the irony comes in is that on some level it saw itself as human(since logically only humans are sentient) and it simply followed its protective directive leading to judgement day
Solid analysis, reminds me of the debate of whether or not it was right to drop the first atomic bomb with the intent of saving many more lives in what could have been a long drawn out war despite us never knowing if it would have played out that way.
So cool to see one of my favorite scfi action series getting discussed for an episode of Analyzing Evil. Great job, man. Just a small correction, when you mentioned the HKs, I might have misheard it but it sounded like you said Human Killers when in the movies they're actually called Hunter Killers. It's okay thought. As Bob Ross once said, we make happy accidents.
Completely different franchise but Bungie with Destiny had a Skynet type Ai called Rasputin, I have to wonder what Skynet would have been like had someone thought to teach it like Rasputin was in Destiny.
What always stood out to me though terminators 1-3, is that although the machines become more advanced, they also become more emotional:
T-800: Virtually none whatsoever
T-1000: Acts dismayed after the grenade disfigured it and Flails and shrieks as it gets dissolved in the molten steel.
T-X: Reacts with shock and intensity when it tastes the bandage and discovers it to be from John conner. Also becomes angry just before the good T-800 explodes, killing them both.
Even more creepy to me was how the T-X was basically a "revision" still very advanced over a T-800 or the closer "Arnold" models, but not the T-1000 all liquid that basically scared skynet. I wish the tv series had focused on both those aspects more, we saw it somewhat but if they were waiting for Season 3 they messed up, it should've happened far earlier.
This video shows why one more film resolving skynet is needed.
When the show is over, do you think you'll make an Analyzing Evil on Jimmy McGill/Saul Goodman from Better Call Saul/Breaking Bad? Could he even be considered evil?
What a sick joke!
0:00 That music gives me chills, so damn sinister and spooky! 😁
I think a spotlight on Silco from Arcane would make a really interesting video.
Machines can’t be good or evil. Good and evil are metaphysical/spiritual, you can’t be good/evil without a soul.
And only humans have a soul? Religious bullcrap.
Great video as always! Love your content. Can you please do a video on the guys in Pain and gain led by Marl Wahlberg which is actually based on a true store? Or Joel from the popular video game the last of us who is the main character and anti hero but at the same time can be seen as the main villain of this univers depending on who you ask.
Is pretty scarry how t 1000 stares, tilts his head when he kills or hurts someone is like he is intrigued by pain and death and wants to see more, a machine just doing it's job but something even more sinister lurking behind it
Since you covered Skynet this episode, is there any possibility you could also cover AM from Harlan Ellison's short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"? I know the two are very similar, but AM is almost the pure definition of evil. It's a much scarier version of Skynet.
Analyzing Evil: Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin from Once Upon a Time
Happy 100th videos
7:52 which is ridiculous if John is assimilated then skynet has won
Speaking of AIs, I think Ultron would be a very interesting subject to analyze. The one from the comics, not the MCU version. His double nature as both a cold machine and one of the most hateful and evil Marvel villains has always been very fascinating to me.
It is my belief that the t1000 chip couldn't be set to read only like the t800 there for it could think for itself and it was fully independent. Making it a problem for skynet.
Great Episode!! Id love to see a video about Eric Cartman. He's an evil little prick at times.