Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Google Is SkyNet

Many have overlooked the fact that the main character in the post apocalyptic-themed Terminator saga, which spanned through the 1980’s to present, is not the Terminator cybernetic organism (cyborg) played by Arnold Schwarzenneger. Perhaps because the main character wasn't even played by any actor. That’s because the main character was SkyNet.

In the films, SkyNet started out as a computer system designed by the United States military to eliminate any margin of human error in swiftly combating system attacks. Later on, the system was given free reign over the military’s defenses, including its nuclear arsenals. However, when the military attempted to deactivate it, the system gained “self-awareness” and in its defense, decided to turn against humanity by launching all nuclear missiles in strategically precise locations all over the world.

It is theorized that SkyNet, as a computer system, had grown so intelligent, “too intelligent,” that it achieved sentience and self-awareness. The system supposedly contained all the information humanity had harvested up to its point of inception including a self-improving mechanism. That way, it would properly assess, correct, and avoid all forms of human error.

Just recently, I came across this design for a t-shirt at bustedtees.com. It had the word SkyNet spelled out in the same colorful font of Google. And then I realized that every single day, Google gets billions of searches, making it the perfect survey for trending the way humans think, interact, want, need, feel, etc.

I’m just sayin’.


-Leo Rafael L. Quesada, Entry #9

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