Skynet Watch

"Listen. And understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead..."

— Kyle Reese
Terminator, 1994

This from Drudge yesterday:

Automated killer robots 'threat to humanity': expert

Increasingly autonomous, gun-totting robots developed for warfare could easily fall into the hands of terrorists and may one day unleash a robot arms race, a top expert on artificial intelligence told AFP.

"They pose a threat to humanity," said University of Sheffield professor Noel Sharkey ahead of a keynote address Wednesday before Britain's Royal United Services Institute.

Intelligent machines deployed on battlefields around the world -- from mobile grenade launchers to rocket-firing drones -- can already identify and lock onto targets without human help.

There are more than 4,000 US military robots on the ground in Iraq, as well as unmanned aircraft that have clocked hundreds of thousands of flight hours.

The first three armed combat robots fitted with large-caliber machine guns deployed to Iraq last summer, manufactured by US arms maker Foster-Miller, proved so successful that 80 more are on order, said Sharkey.

But up to now, a human hand has always been required to push the button or pull the trigger.

It we are not careful, he said, that could change.

As it happens, I was in Queenstown on the South Island of New Zealand on August 29, 1997, the day (according to the Terminator movie timeline) the military Skynet system became self-aware and launched its nuclear war of annihilation against humanity. During dinner with a bunch of crazed Aussies, I made a toast to John Connor, leader of the Resistance. American movies being the only true worldwide mythology, the Aussies hooted and hollared...then one said, "This'd be the place to ride out the war, wouldn't it?"

I've been really impressed with Fox's TERMINATOR — The Sarah Connor Chronicles, the television extension of the movie franchise. The sublime Lena Headley is practically channeling Linda Hamilton, right down to the mechanical pull-ups, and Summer Glau — River, from the much-lamented Firefly series — is hands down the spookiest chick on television.