Hydrogen Bluebird
Member
That fucking Samaritan kid is the most stupid thing POI has done (and continues to do).
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Person of Interest Season 4 |OT| Gods Will Be Watching Tuesdays 10/9c
- Thread starter Sober
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Why? It's something Team Machine won't shoot.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
We love you too, Machine.
Yeah, I get why. No one's willing to shoot or torture a kid.
Hydrogen Bluebird
Member
The whole premise of a kid being the personification of an AI is stupid. The POI AIs can talk to humans and humans can relay their messages. They can't take control of humans. Having a kid talk and act like he was actually Samaritan is wacky and not believable at all.
I think the kid is autistic (just a guess, but the way the boy does work as vessel for Samaritan and his great intelligence make me believe that) and seems quite enjoying playing the machine overlord's avatar.
That was obvious with her interactions with her daughter and her decision to tell POI team to fuck off even though she didn't have anything to gain by not cooperating.
They spent a large portion of the episode revealing that the machine needs to not value any piece more valuable than another.
The primary goal was to ensure the stock exchange was fixed because nothing brings out more deaths than poverty. We even just had a guy ready to commit a suicide bombing to drive across that point.
That was Finch/Reese/Root/Fusco/Shaw's goal, but:
clear as day, and it was on every time that objective box showed up in that episode. Secondary Objective: Prevent Financial Crisis.
Finch might want The Machine to treat everyone equally, but it still isn't completely following that direction.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
That was Finch/Reese/Root/Fusco/Shaw's goal, but:
clear as day, and it was on every time that objective box showed up in that episode. Secondary Objective: Prevent Financial Crisis.
Finch might want The Machine to treat everyone equally, but it still isn't completely following that direction.
Yeah, I think it's to show that the Machine is both a) emotionally attached to its human agents in a way that Samaritan is not, and b) trying to have it both ways by saving its agents and the world and facing another defeat like when it was unable to locate Simmons before he killed Carter.
Exploratory
Banned
FUCK THIS SHOW. FUCK THIS FUCKING SHOW. FUCK. FUCK!
I knew there was a reason I hadn't watched PoI in a while. Its my favorite show by far yet I haven't watched the two new episodes. On some level I knew I fucking knew they killed off my favorite character on my favorite show.
FUCK.
I knew there was a reason I hadn't watched PoI in a while. Its my favorite show by far yet I haven't watched the two new episodes. On some level I knew I fucking knew they killed off my favorite character on my favorite show.
FUCK.
to me make sense, Samaritan behaves like a kid at least displays the mentality of one
That was Finch/Reese/Root/Fusco/Shaw's goal, but:
clear as day, and it was on every time that objective box showed up in that episode. Secondary Objective: Prevent Financial Crisis.
Finch might want The Machine to treat everyone equally, but it still isn't completely following that direction.
Interesting that's where its priorities are. This feels like a reversal of the decision it made where that politician "might" need to die to prevent the awakening of Samaritan.
About that... she never actual said to kill him. She was sending Harold and team to him to decide what to do with him. If she just wanted him dead she could've just send Root or make things happen. I think the machine had trouble to decide and tried to ask admin for directions.
D
Deleted member 80556
Unconfirmed Member
Come on, just the kneecaps. Just one, puhlease.
In that episode with the senator, Finch said that it would take a lot of potential lives saved in order for the Machine to kill a person as that's how it was programmed to do. They just weren't sure just how many it would take for it to get to that point tho.
AH YOU'RE KILLING ME!
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
What's an idiot proof way of making GIFs out of videos in VLC Player? I wanna make some POI gifs
Damn, how many times has Reese been shot in this show? Does he always wear a vest? No matter...he'll just rise again in three days.
Control didn't strike me as someone who would assassinate a terrorist by herself. It was for dramatic purposes, sure. But I guess they want to show how dedicated she is to her cause as well as how much she distrusts everyone else.
It seems like they're building her up to switch teams...don't know how I feel about that. She's a great villain but I don't think she'd fit in very well with the good guys. Wait...did we think the same way about Root? Hmmm....
Control didn't strike me as someone who would assassinate a terrorist by herself. It was for dramatic purposes, sure. But I guess they want to show how dedicated she is to her cause as well as how much she distrusts everyone else.
It seems like they're building her up to switch teams...don't know how I feel about that. She's a great villain but I don't think she'd fit in very well with the good guys. Wait...did we think the same way about Root? Hmmm....
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
I think it'll be more "enemy of my enemy".
Technically, Control and Harold are on the same side. When the Machine was Research, she fed the 'relevant' numbers to Control and the 'irrelevant' numbers to Admin (aka Harold). For a while, this worked fine. Unfortunately, now that the ISA is essentially under the control of Samaritan, that puts Team Machine and ISA at odds with one another.
I think what we're seeing is basically the fracturing of the ISA. Grice and Control are both suffering from cracks in their worldview because unlike the Machine, Samaritan doesn't allow human control of situations, and these two see through that to a degree.
D
Deleted member 325805
Unconfirmed Member
I use this http://www.giffingtool.com/, it has served me well. I swapped from GIFCam because it was producing green spots when trying to make GIFs of Heroes of the Storm whereas GiffingTool works perfectly. It's free to use with a watermark on the bottom or you can buy it, it's pay what you want so $1 if you're cheap like me.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
At the very least, we get to switch the team dynamics up again:
These two will be fascinating to watch as they work together. They haven't really "teamed up", have they?
Also, both have had unrestricted access to God Mode.
Edit: Thanks St3v3!
Edit 2: "I'm the head of security, lady. Do I look like the janitor to you?" - I love this line of dialogue. I think that's basically Control's whole worldview being thrown in her face.
These two will be fascinating to watch as they work together. They haven't really "teamed up", have they?
Also, both have had unrestricted access to God Mode.
Edit: Thanks St3v3!
Edit 2: "I'm the head of security, lady. Do I look like the janitor to you?" - I love this line of dialogue. I think that's basically Control's whole worldview being thrown in her face.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Yeah, I don't expect Control to ever start helping out irrelevants, but she'll need to team up with Harold to stop whatever Samaritan's big evil plan is and restore the program to its original focus.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Yeah, I'd agree with this. You can already tell she's starting to crack with the increased oversight and the presence of Samaritan goons in her life. Besides, the Machine has already spoken with Control, back when Control was interrogating Root:
These are words that Samaritan seems incapable of understanding cause Samaritan is a power-hungry sociopath. Control and the Machine can understand one another, hell, they trust each other (since the Machine continued to send numbers directly to Control up until the Samaritan takeover, and Control was allowed to conduct investigations, thereby giving her human agency and discretion, whereas Samaritan only gives kill orders).
THIS FUCKING SHOW!!! So good. Just watched the two most recent episodes back to back, sad to see Shaw go but I actually do hope she stays dead. At least one of the crew has to bite the bullet to make the stakes feel real. I do have a few problems right now with the show:
#1 Child proxy for Samaritan. It's stupid, it's cliche, it reminds me of Star Child, and it makes no sense. How is Samaritan controlling this kid? Why would a kid do everything some machine in its ear told it? Am I missing something here?
#2 Dominic side plot. Now, maybe this will have some relevance by the end of the season but the whole Dominic-Elias War just seems so petty and small compared to the Machine-Samaritan conflict.
#3 I don't see Samaritan as Evil. This was something that I was hoping the show wouldn't end up doing this season but it seems they want you to dislike Samaritan and see it as some evil entity, yet I haven't seen that. The idea of a benevolent God AI ruling over all humanity doesn't seem that bad to me and it's basically what the Machine does albeit in a more reserved manner. How can one accept what the Machine does and yet sit there and state that Samaritan is bad?
To quote Deus Ex:
"God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgement, and punishment. Other sentiments toward them were secondary. The human organism always worships. First it was the gods, then it was the fame (the observation and judgement of others), next it will be the self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment...You will soon have your God, and you will make it with your own hands."
Maybe by the end (Dues Ex Spoiler)
"If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him." -Voltaire
#1 Child proxy for Samaritan. It's stupid, it's cliche, it reminds me of Star Child, and it makes no sense. How is Samaritan controlling this kid? Why would a kid do everything some machine in its ear told it? Am I missing something here?
#2 Dominic side plot. Now, maybe this will have some relevance by the end of the season but the whole Dominic-Elias War just seems so petty and small compared to the Machine-Samaritan conflict.
#3 I don't see Samaritan as Evil. This was something that I was hoping the show wouldn't end up doing this season but it seems they want you to dislike Samaritan and see it as some evil entity, yet I haven't seen that. The idea of a benevolent God AI ruling over all humanity doesn't seem that bad to me and it's basically what the Machine does albeit in a more reserved manner. How can one accept what the Machine does and yet sit there and state that Samaritan is bad?
To quote Deus Ex:
"God and the gods were apparitions of observation, judgement, and punishment. Other sentiments toward them were secondary. The human organism always worships. First it was the gods, then it was the fame (the observation and judgement of others), next it will be the self-aware systems you have built to realize truly omnipresent observation and judgment...You will soon have your God, and you will make it with your own hands."
Maybe by the end (Dues Ex Spoiler)
Finch will merge his consciousness with the Machine so that it can fully understand organic beings and rule the world as a proper benevolent GOD.
"If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him." -Voltaire
Makes sense. In addition to all of the other motivations the Machine may have for keeping its assets alive, there's also a very pragmatic one. Samaritan seems to have an endless supply of bullet fodder to throw at Team Machine, but the Machine only has a handful of human assets at its disposal. That makes each and every one of its human assets infinitely valuable to the Machine.That was Finch/Reese/Root/Fusco/Shaw's goal, but:
clear as day, and it was on every time that objective box showed up in that episode. Secondary Objective: Prevent Financial Crisis.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
He's taking a sick day
Cuban Legend
Member
Harold established the point that the machine in its current state was the first iteration after 40+ previous versions, all of which lied, broke the rules, and even tried to kill him once it became self aware that it was being controlled.foxtrot3d said:
don't you remember the flashback where Harold was stopping a fire the early machine had started by overheating a server rack behind him in order to turn in the anti-fire systems in order to asfixiate Harold? uh yeah, the machine was evil until Harold 'muzzled' and 'hobbled' it as a protection to himself and mankind.
My point is that the machine is not evil when compared to its past iterations. And its angel when compared to Samaritan, which promptly lies, obstructs evidence, and frames and murders intelligent yet relatively innocent people that it percieves to be a potential threat to its system. That is evil.
The Machine is nowhere near that level of evil.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
You're right.
The Machine was taught to value human life above all by Finch, after he'd hobbled it and gone through 42 iterations. He basically forced a conscience onto it. As a result, the Machine is a force for good. It's learned to care for and, in its own way, love people (at least this is my interpretation). It's taught another sociopath to value life and it gives people purpose.
Samaritan has had none of that. At the bare minimum, he's a sociopath with delusions of grandeur to the extreme, since he can back it up with force and information.
Fusco was a secondary asset IIRC.
This is pretty funny because yeah it seems like he never goes to work. But on that note I found it interesting in this episode that Reese said Shaw's cover was blown like 6 or 8 days ago (forget which) which means all the episodes that have happened since the middle of November last year have taken place within a week of each other.
This is pretty funny because yeah it seems like he never goes to work. But on that note I found it interesting in this episode that Reese said Shaw's cover was blown like 6 or 8 days ago (forget which) which means all the episodes that have happened since the middle of November last year have taken place within a week of each other.
Come to think of. What WOULD Team Machine do if Samaritan would start to create child soldiers? It would totally do that and while child soldiers probably don't come even close to Reese's military experience, they would be a hard enemy to fight for him, especially when they get enhanced with god mode.
Damn, I can actually see that now that I am thinking about it. Turn the Girl Scouts into the Hitler Jugend and all moral enemies will have a REALLY hard time.
I am using gifcam. It works really well, but the gifs are pretty bloated
I think most of the time he just don't get hit. When people get hit in the show, it's really bad, even if they still recover much faster than normal humans should.
Would you say the plot is... irrelevant?
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
So I was half paying attention in the precious episode that introduced the little kid as Samaritan, but how is Samaritan controlling the kid again?
Dirtyshubb
Member
I think it is just speaking to him through an earpiece, so the kid is speaking for Samaritan.
Correct me if im wrong though.
Same way the Machine controls Root. Kid has an earpiece and is simply repeating what Samaritan is saying to him.
Two questions: How is it that The Machine still has access to government feeds? Does the government need to be in physical contact with The Machine to close the feeds off - and since they don't know where it is (and neither do we), they can't shut them off?
I'm also curious as to how the feeds work in the first place. I imagine all official wired and wireless camera systems get feed into the NSA, which in turn can send the signal elsewhere. For everything else, like laptop cameras, I assume they can essentially be bluejacked, like phones can.
The other thing: the last scene in the cabin, the not-terrorist guy said he was working on something biological related. I wonder if one of the goals of Samaritan would be to explore techno-organic interfaces to an even greater degree?
And on a side note: can anyone recommend stories, books, or tv/movies that explore developing or existing A.I. concepts that are not evil? I loved the relationships AIs had with humans in the David Marusek novels - Counting Heads and Mind Over Ship, and would love to see more of that.
I'm also curious as to how the feeds work in the first place. I imagine all official wired and wireless camera systems get feed into the NSA, which in turn can send the signal elsewhere. For everything else, like laptop cameras, I assume they can essentially be bluejacked, like phones can.
The other thing: the last scene in the cabin, the not-terrorist guy said he was working on something biological related. I wonder if one of the goals of Samaritan would be to explore techno-organic interfaces to an even greater degree?
And on a side note: can anyone recommend stories, books, or tv/movies that explore developing or existing A.I. concepts that are not evil? I loved the relationships AIs had with humans in the David Marusek novels - Counting Heads and Mind Over Ship, and would love to see more of that.
I recommend the anime movie "Time of Eve". It's actually made out of 6 stories that play in mysterious cafe and is about AI and humanity. I adore the movie and kickstartered the BD.
I would further recommend Ghost in the Shell: SAC. It's not really focused on the AI aspect and is more like an excting cyberpunk special police show, but AI is a small part of it and honestly the show is just that good.
Yeah, that almost feels like it's from a different show by now. To me, it fit pretty well as a B story to the case of the week though, so if / when they go back to that structure, the Dominic arc will probably feel more relevant again.
Jay Shadow
Member
Dominic-Elias is the human version of the Samaritan vs the Machine. One that doesn't need a stupid kid involved. Both gangs accomplish the same task on paper. But Dominic is cold, calculating, and doesn't care about people. They're just tools to get what he wants. Dominic is Samaritan.
Mexen
Member
Gold! Well done!
Lord_Byron28
Member
I think it had him labelled as secondary asset.
I actually wonder if the Dominic stuff will get tied into the machine/samaritan storyline at some point. The last time we saw Dominic he was starting to figure out that team machine is a third party not tied to crime or the government and it was implied he wanted to learn more about them. That could be a rather interesting development if someone like Elias or Dominic discovered what was really going on in the world.
Yeah, that's my only quibble too. I'm fine with the idea of Samaritan using a kid but it would be so much creepier if the kid didn't really understand the words he was relaying. There's no reason he should be emoting.
Dirtyshubb
Member
Well considering the kid is meant to be a genius it makes sense.
Imagine, giving a kid genius who hacks into government servers for fun the ability to be the human analogue for a god Ai for the sole purpose of taking over the world.Do you really think he wouldn't start being a Smug shit who thinks he is amazing?
Actually makes a lot of sense of you think of it that way.
I wondered earlier, if Samaritan had been helping Dominic along in his empire, as one of it's many plans to destabilize anything in Team Machine's corner (Elias). Dom constantly seemed ahead of the game at times.
Also, POI won the timeslot again, and it was adjusted up. 1.7 with 10.16 million viewers
No it doesn't because he's a child...
First, accepting the improbable likelyhood there is a child genius that smart at such a young age, 1) Why would it ever listen to the Machine?; 2) It's a freakin kid! And by that I mean no matter how smart a child is they are still a child, meaning they would want to and would do child like things. It's dumb, plain and simple.
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