Strategic Computing Initiative

December 19, 2013 6:15 PM

DARPA Tried to Build Skynet in the 1980s.
posted by homunculus (8 comments total)

Paleofuture? Is this like Io9 for folks that do crossfit?
posted by sendai sleep master at 6:17 PM on December 19, 2013 [5 favorites]

That ALV looks like it's just a server room in a van. I'd join the human resistance in a heartbeat if it just meant going around and tipping over ALVs like cows.
posted by Strange Interlude at 6:25 PM on December 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

A WOPR of a yarn na'mean? Heh, Heh, Heh.. Heh. *takes sip of EWSB* yeah.
posted by lordaych at 6:39 PM on December 19, 2013

No. Did not happen. Back in 1985 when this project allegedly occurred, the state of the art was an IBM PC with two floppy disks and a 1200 baud modem. Strategic Computing meant driving a mainframe computer in an 18 wheeler truck to a C&C site for encrypted communications. I guarantee you that ALV had a human remote controller, that sort of hardware was too expensive to crash into a tree autonomously.
posted by charlie don't surf at 7:47 PM on December 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

I hit upon the word "paleofuture" for some art project back in 2007 and thought it was such a neat little word and I was kinda clever - then Googled it and found out I missed being original by that much, as the blog had started a few months before. Damn you internet! Really great blog, though.
posted by jason_steakums at 7:59 PM on December 19, 2013

No. Did not happen.

German researchers already had autonomous cars using computer vision to drive at up to 40 MPH in the 80s.
posted by jjwiseman at 8:40 PM on December 19, 2013

Wow. Who knew that the scenario outlined in Real Genius was the optimistic one.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:58 PM on December 19, 2013

This chart proves that bad presentation design predates widespread Powerpoint usage.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:59 AM on December 20, 2013 [1 favorite]