Meaning of Skynet | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A family of United Kingdom military communications satellites.
2. A distributed artificial intelligence system that is aware of the physical world and acts autonomously through cyborgs and computer control systems; (by extension) an uncontrollable AI that threatens humanity.

Examples

“On returning to Stanmore in 1967 he [the author] was in charge of the development of transportable satellite earth stations Types III and IV for use⟳ in the British Skynet defence communications system. He was responsible for the proposal and all the technical concepts for the communications payload of the Skynet II satellite.”

“But [William Robert] Graham confirmed that a proposal to carry⟳ the British Skynet satellites aboard the shuttle [Space Shuttle] had already been terminated.”

“The SKYNET 4D, 4E and 4F military communications satellites are built to the SKYNET 4 Stage⟳ 2 standard by Matra Marconi Space UK Ltd. […] The function of the SKYNET UHF antenna is to receive⟳ and transmit UHF communications covering the visible face⟳ of the Earth from geostationary orbit.”

“In the first two films, Skynet is a colossal piece of hardware, a single unit which contains an artificial intelligence designed to run⟳ the US nuclear weapons system, a doomsday computer that becomes aware and destroys humanity. […] It was only through some very fancy footwork that Terminator 2: Judgment Day managed to make⟳ it remotely plausible that Skynet had sent a second machine to a later date⟳. Since Skynet is presumably aware of its own⟳ origins, this makes the first film marginally less plausible.”

“Maybe I watched too many Mazinger shows or read⟳ too many Yoko Tsuno BDs as a kid and, surely, I think⟳ the best way to end⟳ […] humanity would be to migrate⟳ SkyNet to Windows Vista, but somehow I thought it would be fun.”

“With the more convoluted Terminator Salvation, the seductive power of the skin job gives way to a constant maze of false seeming, centered on the relationship between John Connor and the part-cyborg Marcus Wright during the post-apocalyptic human fight⟳ against Skynet and its various killing machines.”

“Calpurnia, the Good Sister, the artificial intelligence created by Zephyr Bain, had achieved consciousness and self-awareness. She knew of her existence. She had crossed the line from the predictable and anticipated inevitable model⟳ of machine consciousness. However, it should have⟳ stopped there. The Skynet model⟳ from the Terminator movies didn't really work⟳, because true consciousness was a by-product of chemistry and physical constitution.”

“We’re explicitly not building Skynet.”

CEFR level