5 Worrying Signs That Skynet Is Our Future

How long do we have before our own machines decide our fate?

By Harry Thomas /

With the impending (second or third, depending on your assessment of Rise of the Machines) reboot of the Terminator franchise, there€™s a lot of speculation on what Terminator: Genisys will bring to James Cameron€™s dystopian future scenario. But what about the real world? Moore€™s Law, named after Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, noted that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. Those of us who have grown up in the computer age have seen the wisdom of that observation, as we€™ve gone from the giant computer rooms of the 1960s to the mighty chips that dominate our computers and electronic devices today. It€™s staggering to think that the smartphone in your pocket has thousands more times computing power than what NASA used to get astronauts to the moon in 1969. So with the increases in processing technology and data collection, combined with the increased surveillance that is a result of the War on Terror, how far are we from a future where a self-aware system like Skynet comes online? How close are we to a technological apocalypse brought about by our own arrogance and need to know everything about everyone? Here€™s some ways that we€™re inching closer to A.I. and possibly sealing our doom.

5. A.I. Is What Enables Skynet To Become Self-Aware

Kyle Reese: Defense network computers. New... powerful... hooked into everything, trusted to run it all. They say it got smart, a new order of intelligence. Then it saw all people as a threat, not just the ones on the other side. Decided our fate in a microsecond: extermination.
We€™re already using rudimentary forms of artificial intelligence, or A.I., in most of our technological devices. Robot vacuum cleaners now clean your floors. GPS devices not only tell us where we currently are, but how to get to where we€™re going and determine how long it will take to get there based on our current speed. Cars are now coming out with automated braking systems that detect potential crashes and apply the brakes for you. Airplanes are mostly flown by software now, with the automated systems taking over most of the duties of the pilot. Smartphones can track our locations and make suggestions for where we should eat lunch, based on your geographical location (and where you've eaten before). Judgment Day (and the T2-3D: Battle Across Time attraction at Universal Studios) indicated that Skynet was wiped out by the actions of the T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and the young John Connor (Edward Furlong). But Rise of the Machines indicated that the evolution of Skynet had only been delayed. More and more hardware is being hooked into the Internet each day. Hackers delight in proving that it can be taken down, which prompts governments and technological agencies to beef it up. The world is wired together in a way it never has been before, with networks tied together spanning the globe. The third act of Rise of the Machines has Col. Brewster (David Andrews) ordered to activate the Skynet program in order to solve worldwide computer problems. In reality, it seals humanity€™s doom. Skynet uses the inter-connected capacity of the Internet and telecommunications networks to distribute its control throughout the world, ensuring that it can€™t be destroyed even as it proceeds to destroy our world.