Quote Originally Posted by cyber3d
Remember in the movies computers took over all the machines? Well, the software which made that possible was called "Skynet." The backstory was that Skynet is not your normal operating system (aka OS) (which typically resides in a stand alone, er ah, box (like the desktop you might be using to surf the web right now). Instead, it was an OS which resides in the net and does not rely on hardware. It is like bots or a virus, code which is instructed to act on it's own doing whatever it was meant to do. Once it is released to the net, it just goes on it's merry way with out any intervention, with out any operator input. Sort of an artificial intelligence operative. Ok, so one of the goals of programmers is the holy grail of autonomous artificial intelligence. Pat your computer data packet on the rear and say "bye-bye" go out into the world and learn and grow and make your mark in the world. Skynet was released from the control of the military operations center into the net to operate autonomously. They were gambling on it's ability to find a fault in the system once it was set free. Instead it made a tiny error and decided to eliminate mankind. Something like that.

As efficient as cloud computing may turn out to be, I don't think we should go down that path which will inevitably lead to AI controlling our lives and with too much possibility of clandestine gov't or military interference and manipulation.

Terminator...I Am Robot...Eagle Eye...