[iberator]

Skynet is already out. Choosing and finding targets is already here. Self manned drones: check. All we need is to automate the button to release the Hellfire missile...

Gaza war was almost like that.

All we need to do is dead mans switch system with AI launching missiles in retaliation. One error and BOOM

[lukan]

Skynet could replicate itself. What we have now is far from it

[rickdeckard]

If I remember correctly, the original Terminator story is that Skynet was put in charge of operating a vast amount of infrastructure, became self-aware and deemed humans as a threat to its goals. It then launched a nuclear strike against them and ordered a machine army to eradicate the remaining ones.

I don't think we're that far away from that. Just the decision of someone to put an AI in charge of critical infrastructure and defense, or a series of oversights allowing an external AI to take control of it.

Looking at the past year and all the unpredicted conclusions AI came to, self-awareness is probably not needed for an AI to consider humans as an obstacle to achieve some poorly-phrased goal.

The Paperclip maximizer theory [0] comes to mind...

[0] https://aicorespot.io/the-paperclip-maximiser/

[probably_wrong]

If we are getting detailed about Skynet, the plot of the first two movies (IIRC) is that there is a central Skynet that the resistance is about to destroy for good. It's only from T3 on that they describe Skynet as being distributed.

So the question is which Skynet, the one in the common conscience or the one that the continuity established via bad movies only a few people care about.

[rickdeckard]

Well, we may not be confronted with a self-aware Skynet machine in the aftermath.

Maybe it'll just some dumb model in a datacenter with badly phrased objectives, which just happens to have caused severe destruction via various APIs and agents before anyone noticed...