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DARPA Spent $1B Trying to Build a Real-Life Skynet in the 1980s (2013)

From 1983 to 1993 DARPA spent over $1 billion on a program called the Strategic Computing Initiative. The agency's goal was to push the boundaries of computers, artificial intelligence, and robotics to build something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to the dystopian future of the Termin

The goal was to create unbelievably fast computers that would allow Japan to leapfrog other countries (most importantly the United States and its emerging "Silicon Valley") in the race for technological dominance. As Alex Roland notes in the book Strategic Computing, "One officer, who completely misunderstood the concept of the ALV program, complained that the vehicle was militarily useless: huge slow, and painted white, it would be too easy a target on the battlefield." We see the vision systems that were imagined for ALV emerging in robots like Boston Dynamics' Atlas, we see the Pilot Associate's Siri-like understanding of speech being utilized by the US Air Force, and we see autonomous vehicles being tested by Google, among a host of other companies.

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