WarGames

WarGames is a really interesting movie of the 1980's which talk about how technology was viewed in those years.

The premise is that a smart boy is able to enter to the Department Of Defense database and he discover a game which turns out to be a simulation for a real world war. So the the story moves around the kid trying to undo his mistake.

In the 80's it was believed that computers could be of great danger, if someone unauthorized get in, could administrate the launch of the misiles, bank accounts, etc. So this movie was a perfect example of that. Once the boy began the game, it (the game) took control over the United States DOD machines and show in the screens what was actually happening in the simulation, making everyone believe that Russia was actually preparing for the third world war.

Eventually the scientists discover that it just a simulation taking place, but still everyone just keep playing alone with it (movie stuff I suppose). So the boy go to the man that created the simulation in order to make everyone come to reason. But by the time that happens, the simulation has already stolen the codes to launch every USS misiles. So now the problem is how to make the machine knows it is only a simulation and it could never win the war. Lucky for us, the program has a really good artificial intelligence so by playing "tick tac toe" with himself over an over again it discovers that there are some games that are impossible to win. The simulation begins to compute all the possible result of wars with every country and sees that there's not a possibility to win either way, so it aborts the simulation and everyone is happy.

Reference:

“WarGames” directed by John Badham in 1983.