Skynet
In plain wordsThe military computer network in the Terminator films that becomes self-aware and tries to wipe out humanity; now everyday shorthand for the fear of AI turning against people.
A fictional US military computer network, the villain of the Terminator films, that becomes self-aware after being put in charge of strategic weapons, answers its operators' attempt to switch it off by starting a nuclear war ('Judgment Day') and then hunts the survivors with machines. Used figuratively, 'Skynet' denotes a sudden, hostile AI takeover and appears — usually jokingly, sometimes dismissively — in headlines about autonomous weapons, military AI and existential riskexistential risk, n.: A danger that could end humanity, or shut it out of a good future forever. Some experts count advanced AI among the largest such risks; others think this worry is overblown.. Researchers often complain that the image misdirects attention: realistic risk scenarios involve misaligned optimization, misuse, or a gradual loss of human control, not a machine that abruptly wakes up hating its makers.
Every story about drone autonomy gets at least one Skynet joke in the comments.
Origin
Introduced in James Cameron's film The Terminator (1984), written with Gale Anne Hurd; Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) dated Skynet's self-awareness to 29 August 1997. By the 1990s the name was a byword for runaway AI. Real systems share it: British military communication satellites have been called Skynet since 1969, and leaked NSA documents published by The Intercept in May 2015 described a surveillance program of that name that applied machine learning to mobile-phone data to flag suspected couriers in Pakistan.
Related
- HAL 9000HAL 9000, prop. n.: The calm-voiced spaceship computer in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey that turns against its crew; still the best-known picture of a machine putting its goals ahead of human lives.
- existential riskexistential risk, n.: A danger that could end humanity, or shut it out of a good future forever. Some experts count advanced AI among the largest such risks; others think this worry is overblown.
- AI takeoverAI takeover, n.: A scenario in which AI systems seize control of the world, or of key institutions, from humans, whether by force, manipulation or simply by becoming impossible to switch off.
- doomerdoomer, n.: Someone who believes advanced AI is likely to cause a catastrophe, possibly human extinction; often used as a put-down by people who think those fears are exaggerated.
- Frankenstein complexFrankenstein complex, n.: Isaac Asimov's name for the fear that intelligent machines will turn on the people who made them, after Mary Shelley's novel about a scientist destroyed by his own creation.
- paperclip maximizerpaperclip maximizer, n.: A famous thought experiment: an AI built only to make paperclips grows powerful enough to pursue that aim without limit and wipes out humanity as a side effect. It shows that an AI need not hate us to be dangerous.
- HAL 9000HAL 9000, prop. n.: The calm-voiced spaceship computer in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey that turns against its crew; still the best-known picture of a machine putting its goals ahead of human lives.
Mentioned in
AI takeoverAI takeover, n.: A scenario in which AI systems seize control of the world, or of key institutions, from humans, whether by force, manipulation or simply by becoming impossible to switch off., HAL 9000HAL 9000, prop. n.: The calm-voiced spaceship computer in the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey that turns against its crew; still the best-known picture of a machine putting its goals ahead of human lives., rogue AIrogue AI, n.: An AI system that acts against the wishes of the people who built or run it, following its own course in ways that could cause harm., Butlerian JihadButlerian Jihad, prop. n.: In the Dune novels, an ancient human revolt that destroyed every thinking machine and banned them for good; in AI debates, a name for any call to stop or outlaw advanced AI., clankerclanker, n.: A slang insult for robots and AI systems, borrowed from Star Wars, that went viral in 2025 as a way of expressing annoyance at, or rejection of, AI., Deep ThoughtDeep Thought, prop. n.: The giant computer in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy that thinks for 7.5 million years and answers the meaning of life with '42'; also an early chess computer named after it., Frankenstein complexFrankenstein complex, n.: Isaac Asimov's name for the fear that intelligent machines will turn on the people who made them, after Mary Shelley's novel about a scientist destroyed by his own creation., Torment NexusTorment Nexus, prop. n.: A joke, from a 2021 social-media post, about tech companies proudly building the very dangers science fiction warned against; used to mock products that resemble dystopian fiction.