From 1983 to 1993 DARPA drop over $ 1 billion on a program called the Strategic Computing Initiative . The agency ’s goal was to push the boundaries of computers , stilted intelligence , and robotics to build something that , in hindsight , face strikingly interchangeable to the dystopian future of the Terminator movies . They want to buildSkynet .
Much like Ronald Reagan ’s Star Wars platform , the idea behind Strategic Computing proved too futurist for its fourth dimension . But with the arresting advancements we ’re witnessing today in military AI and self-reliant robots , it ’s deserving revisiting this near draw a blank program , and asking ourselves if we ’re quick for a world of hyperconnected bolt down machine . And perhaps a more sleeveless question : Even if we wanted to stop it , is it too belated ?
“The possibilities are quite startling…”
If the unexampled genesis engineering develop as we now expect , there will be unique unexampled chance for military diligence of computer science . For example , instead of field dim-witted guided missiles or remotely piloted vehicle , we might launch completely autonomous land , ocean , and air fomite adequate to of complex , far - ranging reconnaissance and attack delegation . The possibilities are quite startling , and intimate that new coevals calculation could essentially change the nature of succeeding conflicts .
That ’s from a little - knowndocumentpresented to Congress in October of 1983 adumbrate the mission of the new Strategic Computing Initiative ( SCI ) . And like most everything DARPA has done before and since , it ’s unapologetically ambitious .
The vision for SCI was enfold up in a completely new organisation spearhead by Robert Kahn , then conductor of Information Processing Techniques Office ( IPTO ) at DARPA . As it ’s explain in the 2002 bookStrategic Computing , Kahn was n’t the first to reckon such a system , but “ he was the first to give voice a vision of what SC might be . He launched the project and shaped its early yr . SC went on to have a life of its own , run by other people , but it never suffer the embossment of Kahn . ”
The system was suppose to make a humankind where autonomous vehicles not only provide word on any opposition worldwide , but could light upon with deadly precision from nation , sea , and tune . It was to be a global connection that connect every look of the U.S. military ’s technological capabilities — capabilities that depend on young , impossibly fast computer .
But the electronic connection was n’t supposed to process info in a cold , subject - of - fact mode . No , this young system was suppose to see , get a line , act , and react . Most importantly , it was supposed to understand , all without human suggestion .
An Economic Arms Race
The origin of Strategic Computing is often associated with the technical competition brewing between the U.S. and Japan in the early 1980s . The Japanese wanted to build a new generation of supercomputers as a introduction for hokey intelligence capabilities . Pairing the economic might of the Nipponese government activity with Japan ’s burgeoning microelectronics and computer industriousness , they embarked on theirFifth GenerationComputer System to accomplish it .
The goal was to create improbably fast computers that would allow Japan to leapfrog other countries ( most importantly the United States and its emerging “ Silicon Valley ” ) in the race for technical authorization . They yield themselves a decade to fulfill this labor . But much like the United States , no matter how much faster they made their machines , they could n’t seem to make them “ smarter ” with potent AI .
Japan ’s ambition terrified many mass in the U.S. who worried that America was losing its technological boundary . This reverence was stoked in no small-scale part by a 1983 book calledThe Fifth contemporaries : Artificial Intelligence and Japan ’s Computer Challenge to the Worldby Edward A. Feigenbaum and Pamela McCorduck , which was seen as a must - read on Capitol Hill .
As a way to sell the SCI to the American people — and to private interests — DARPA insisted that its goal was explicitly for the nation ’s economical interests from the get - go . Spin - offs of the technology being developed were trusted to excite America ’s economic system , grant to the DARPA planning written document :
“ The consumer electronics industry will incorporate fresh - contemporaries computer science engineering and create a family market for applications of machine intelligence . ”
Reaching out to the secret sector and the university organization would also ensure that the best and bright were put up to DARPA ’s mission for the syllabus :
every bit important is technology transfer to diligence , both to build up a fundament of technologist and system builders familiar with computer science and motorcar intelligence operation technology now resident in leading university laboratory , and to facilitate internalization of the young technology into corporate product lines . To this goal we will make full use of regulation of Government procurement involving protection of proprietary information and barter secrets , patent rightfield , and licensing and royal line arrangements .
The long and short of it ? The government gave confidence to secret industry that the engineering recrudesce would n’t be handed off to vie party .
But economic competition with the Japanese , while very much a inducement , was almost a hobby concern for many policymakers sweep in Cold War government . Military build - up was the prime concern for the more warlike members of the Republican party . The military threat from the Soviet Union was seen by many of them as the larger issue . And SCI was designed to turn to that threat head - on .
The Star Wars Connection
The launch of the Strategic Computing program and DARPA ’s requests for proposals in 1983 and 1984 set off a heated debate in the academic community of interests — the same community that would ultimately do good from DARPA funding from this undertaking . Some were questioning that the ambitious architectural plan for advanced artificial intelligence could ever be action . Others vex that advance the cause of AI for the military machine would show in a terrifying geological era of self-governing automaton armies .
It was a valid concern . If the goal of Star Wars — the popular nickname for Ronald Reagan ’s Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI ) , and a popular political football game at the meter — was an automatise answer ( or semi - automated reaction ) to any missile menace from the Soviets , it would seem absurd not to splice it into a big net of truly intelligent political machine . The missions of the two projects—-not to mention their arise instauration — overlapped too much to be a coincidence , despite everyone ’s imperativeness that it was just that .
From a1988 paperby Chris Hables Gray :
The Star Wars conflict manager , probably the most complex and the orotund software project ever , is conceptually ( though not administratively ) a part of [ Strategic Computing Initiative ] . Making the scientific breakthroughs in work out that the SDI needs is a key goal of the [ Strategic Computing Initiative ] .
If you postulate anyone who wreak on the SCI at the highest levels ( as Roland did for his 2002 book on the project ) they ’ll insist that SCI had nothing to do with Ronald Reagan ’s dreaming for Star Wars . But right from Strategic Computing ’s former day , people were making association between the SCI and the SDI . The connective tissue paper came in part simply because the programs portion out similar epithet , and were even distinguish by the same valet de chambre , DARPA theatre director from 1981 until 1985,Robert Cooper . And perhaps people get wind a ribbon because the interconnecting computing power being develop for SCI just made sense as an app program for a distance - based scheme of projectile defense .
Whether or not you believe SCI was going to go as an branch of the Star Wars delegation for quad - based defensive structure , there ’s no denying that if both had mold out , they would ’ve been natural collaborators .
Applying Strategic Computing on Land, Sea and Air
The 1983 chart above outline the delegacy of Strategic Computing . The destination was clear : develop a tolerant base of machine intelligence technical school to increase interior security measure and economic strength . But to do that , Congress and the military institutions that would eventually gain from SCI would need to see it in action .
SCI had three app that were supposed to prove its potential , though it would acquire many more by the former 1980s . Leading the charge were the Autonomous Land Vehicle , the Pilot ’s Associate , and the Aircraft Carrier Battle Management System .
These applications were built on top of the incredibly modern calculator that were being explicate at places like BBN , the Cambridge companionship probably intimately known for its work on developing the early internet , and would reserve for advancements in things like vision systems , language comprehension , and piloting — vital tools for an mix military force of man and simple machine .
The most threatening - looking product to emerge from SCI was the Autonomous Land Vehicle . The 8 - bicycle remote-controlled land fomite was 10 groundwork marvelous and 13.5 feet prospicient , with a tv camera and sensors mounted on the cap guiding its vision and navigation system .
Martin Marietta , which meld with the Lockheed Corporation in 1995 to become Lockheed Martin , won the bid in the summertime of 1984 to make the experimental ALV . They would get $ 10.6 million in the three and a half years of the program ( about $ 24 million set for ostentation ) with an optional $ 6 million after that if the project met certain benchmarks .
The October 1985 issue of Popular Science let in a story about the tests that were being lead at a cloak-and-dagger Martin Marietta adeptness southwest of Denver .
Writer Jim Schefter key the scene at the test adeptness :
The box-shaped blue - and - white vehicle creep sedately along a narrow Colorado valley route , never venturing far from the centre line . A single window , set cylcops - like in the vehicle ’s slab face , hold no clue about the driver . The tentative trek looks out of type for the monolithic 10 - metrical unit tall eight - wheeled vehicle . Although three on - board diesel engines wail , the wheels creep along at three mph .
After about a half - stat mi , the hulking vehicle stops . But nobody climbs out . There is no one aboard — just a information processing system . Using optical maser and telecasting for eyes , a seminal — yet still advanced — artificial - news programme has sent the vehicle down the road without human intervention .
DARPA paired Martin Marietta with the University of Maryland , whose early work in vision systems was see as instrumental to make the independent fomite portion of the programme a succeeder .
As it turn out , creating a vision system for an independent vehicle is incredibly unmanageable . The organization was slang by visible radiation and shadow , and thus could n’t put to work with any degree of consistence . It might be able to discover the edge of the road at noon just fine , only to be thrown off by the shadows cast during the early evening .
Any environmental modification ( like mud tracked along the route by a unlike fomite ) also threw the vision system for a loop . This , of course , was unacceptable even in the extremely check testing area . If it could n’t manage such seemingly unsubdivided obstacles , how would such a fomite deal with the unnumberable variable quantity it would sure enough encounter out in the battlefield ?
Despite meeting substantial milestone by November of 1987 , the ALV component of SCI was effectively abandon by the end of the class . Though the autonomous fomite was still quite naive , some mass at DARPA guess it was being knock down right smart too shortly .
In the destruction , it could n’t overcome its battle unreadiness . As Alex Roland note in the book Strategic Computing , “ One officer , who totally misunderstood the concept of the ALV program , kvetch that the vehicle was militarily useless : huge slow , and painted white , it would be too well-to-do a aim on the battlefield . ” DARPA formally cancel work on the ALV in April of 1988 .
Another covering envisioned ahead of time on in the development of the SCI was the Pilot ’s Associate . It was guess as a form of invisible R2 - D2 — a chic companion ( see in a ghostly visage as illustrate above ) that understood plain language surrender by the pilot program . The companion might spot a potential aim , for instance , and necessitate the pilot if it should engross . Top Gun run across Siri .
The pilot would still make the final decision in this scenario . But the Pilot ’s Associate was going to be chic enough not only to recognize who , what , and how to ask questions . It also understood why .
From the Strategic Computingplanning document :
original in combat are regularly overwhelmed by the quantity of incoming data and communication theory on which they must base life or death decisions . They can be equally overwhelmed by the dozens of switch , button , and knobs that plow their control grip demanding precise activating . While each of the aircraft ’s century of components attend legitimate purpose , the technologies which created them have far outpace our skill at intelligently interfacing the pilot with them .
It ’s here that we see DARPA ’s case emerge for call for a Skynet of its own . The consuming nature of scrap — overwhelming , DARPA implies , only because battlefield technology had already advance so chop-chop — could only be achieve with new machine . The pilot light may still be the one push the clitoris , but these computers would do at least half the thinking for him . When humanity ca n’t keep up , hand it off to the machine .
The Pilot ’s Associate app never got the same exposure in the American press that the ALV did , credibly because it was harder to visualize than an enormous , driverless tank rolling down the route . But looking at the spoken communication recognition technical school of today , it ’s promiscuous to see where all that inquiry into a Pilot ’s Associate ended up .
The Battle Management System was the third of the three coating in the beginning contrive to prove that SCI was a virtual try .
As it ’s account in Strategic Computing ( 2002 ):
In the naval struggle management system envisioned for SC , the expert organization would “ make inferences about enemy and own force order - of - battle which explicitly include dubiety , sire strike options , carry out feigning for judge these pick , mother the [ operation plan ] , and produce explanations .
The Battle Management System was basically the brain of the full surgical procedure , and for that cause it was kept out of the spotlight more so than grunts like the ALV . Robots rolling down the road without human control is terrorise enough for some people . Invisible automaton with their invisible fingerbreadth on the very genuine nuclear button ? You do n’t exactly send press loss out for that one .
The Battle Management System was devise as an coating specifically for the Navy ( just as the ALV had been designed for the Army , and the Pilot ’s Associate for the Air Force ) but it was really just a display case for the broad system . Every one of these technologies was intended to finally be used wherever it was most needed . The voice recognition software developed for the Pilot ’s fellow would demand to work for every subdivision of the military , not just the Air Force . And the Battle Management System would have to play nice with everyone — except the foeman target , of course of action .
Piecing Together Skynet
All of the various components of the Strategic Computing Initiative were part of a larger hypothetical system that could have radically changed the nature of war in the 21st century .
envisage a orbicular wireless web overseeing various subnetworks within the U.S. military . Imagine ground forces of golem tank on the ground talk to fleets of drones in the sky and unmanned submarines in the ocean — all coordinating their activity faster than any human commander ever could . Now imagine it all being that much more complicated , with thermonuclear warhead hold back to be deploy in space .
The imagination for the Strategic Computing Initiative was incredibly bold , and yet somehow quaint when we look at just how far it could have gone . The logical extensions of inviolable AI and a global electronic connection of killing machines are not hard to foresee , if only because we ’ve ensure them played out in fiction innumerable times .
The Future of War and Peace
What at last vote down the Strategic Computing Initiative in the other 90s was the acceptance — after most a decennium of try out — that strong artificial intelligence service on the stage DARPA had imagined was but unachievable . But if all of these various engineering developed in the eighties speech sound spookily familiar , it ’s belike because they ’re all making headlines here in the former 21st century .
We see the vision system that were ideate for ALV emerge in robots like Boston Dynamics’Atlas , we see the Pilot Associate ’s Siri - like understanding of lecture being utilized by the US Air Force , and we see autonomous vehicles beingtested by Google , among a legion of other company . They ’re all the futurity of warfare . And if company like Google are to be believed , they ’re the hereafter of peace as well .
Google ’s recentpurchase of Boston Dynamicshas raised quite a few eyebrows among those concerned about a future filled with self-directed automaton armies . Google enounce that Boston Dynamics will honour old declaration with military guest , though they ’ll no longer have any new ace .
But whether or not they uphold to take on military contract ( and it ’s sure potential that they could do so under the radar within a secretiveblack budget ) there ’s no motion that the assembly line between military and civilian engineering science has always been blur . If Boston Dynamics never again work for organizations like DARPA , and yet Google benefits from enquiry paid for by the military , then ostensibly the organisation worked .
The armed forces got what it demand by advancing the science of robotics with a private company . And now lessons from that military tech will show up in our routine civilian lives — just like countless other technologies , include the internet itself .
In verity , this post barely scratches the open of DARPA ’s breathing in for Strategic Computing . But hopefully , by go on to search yesterday ’s visions of the future we can gain some historical perspective to good appreciate that these new advancements do n’t emerge out of fragile air . They ’re not even that fresh . They ’re the product of decades of inquiry and billions of dollars being spent by hundreds of organizations — both public and secret .
at last , Strategic Computing was n’t derailed by some care of what creating such a program would do to our world . The technology to ramp up it — from the innovative AI to the independent vehicles — simply was n’t develop fast enough . But here we are , two ten after SCI faded aside ; two decades further into the development of this vision for smart machine .
Our time to come of super - smart , interlink robots is nearly here . You do n’t have to like it , but you ca n’t say you were n’t warn .
Sources : Strategic Computing : DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence , 1983 - 1993by Alex Roland with Philip Shiman ( 2002 ) ; Strategic Computing : New Generation Computing Technology : A Strategic Plan for its Development and app to Critical Problems in Defense by DARPA ( 6 April 2025);Strategic Computing at DARPA : Overview and Assessmentby Mark Stefik ( 1985);Arms and Artificial Intelligence : Weapons and Arms Control Applications of Advanced Computingedited by Allan M. Din ( 1988 ) ; The Strategic Computing Program at Four Years : implication and Intimations by Chris Hables Gray ( 1988 ) ;
mental image : ALV with laser sight viaLockheed Martin ; Strategic Computing logotype from the 1983 DARPA planning text file ; Cover ofFifth Generationscanned from the book top ; PIM / p computer viaJipDec ; Ronald Reagan and Star Wars screenshot take from the PBS American Masters curriculum ; opprobrious and livid ALV outside Denver , scan from an archival press pic ; ALV instance scanned from the October 1983 issue of Popular Science ; Artists ’ concept exemplification for the Pilot ’s Associate receive in an early online draft copy ofThe Quest for Artificial Intelligenceby Nils Nilsson ( 2009 ) ; calamitous and white Pilot ’s Associate illustration scan from the bookStrategic calculation : DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence , 1983 - 1993by Alex Roland and Philip Shiman ( 2002 ) ; Atlas Robot and Google driverless car taken from WikiCommons ; Future autonomous military belligerent via theUnmanned Systems Integrated Roadmap FY 2011 - 2036published by the U.S. Department of Defense
boston dynamicsDarpaDronesGoogleRonald ReaganSkynet
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