Skynet (Terminator)

Depiction in media

In the original 1984 film, Skynet is described as a revolutionary defense network built by Cyberdyne Systems for SAC-NORAD. Kyle Reese explains that it was "new... powerful... hooked into everything" and that it "got smart, a new order of intelligence." Skynet perceived all humans as a threat and decided on extermination in a microsecond, launching a nuclear war that destroyed most of the population. It then used surviving humans as slave labor.

After the human resistance, led by John Connor, destroyed Skynet's defense grid in 2029, Skynet sent a Model 101 Terminator back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor before she could give birth to John. Connor sent Kyle Reese to protect her; Reese and Sarah fell in love, and Reese became John's father. The Terminator was destroyed in a hydraulic press. Its damaged CPU and right arm were recovered by Cyberdyne and reverse-engineered, leading to the development of Skynet.

In the second film, Miles Dyson was months away from inventing a microprocessor based on those parts. Cyberdyne became the largest supplier of military computer systems, and a Skynet funding bill passed Congress. The system went online on August 4, 1997, and became self-aware at 2:14 a.m. EDT on August 29, 1997. When humans tried to shut it down, Skynet launched a nuclear attack against Russia, triggering Judgment Day.

Cultural impact

Skynet is frequently used in popular media as an analogy for the potential threat of advanced artificial intelligence. In 2018, computer scientist Stuart J. Russell of the Future of Life Institute expressed concern that the fictional Skynet had influenced US defense officials, who dismissed the risk of autonomous weapons on the grounds that their experts did not believe the "Skynet thing" was likely. Russell argued that this conflation obscured the real dangers of autonomous weapons. He cited Skynet's influence as a reason the Institute produced the arms-control advocacy video Slaughterbots in 2017, aiming to redirect attention to what it considers the actual threat.