Cyberdyne Systems (aka Cyberdyne Systems Corporation), a fictional corporation in the Terminator franchise
Cyberdyne Inc. (Japanese company), a Japanese company which sells a Powered exoskeleton called HAL 5 (Hybrid Assistive Limb)
PBS noted the program had received funding from the David H. Koch Foundation for Science. It also received “additional funding” from Lockheed Martin, which on its face looks like a violation of PBS’ underwriting guidelines.
I think robots are going to have a huge impact on the world, just like computers did, or cars did, or asphalt, or electricity. That scale of impact—enormous impact—but I don’t think the impact is going to be because they become evil and take over. I think it’s going to be just because everything we do changes. Some things get easier, some things will get harder—not many things—and society will change. That’s a lot more scary, in some ways.
I think one disappointing thing about the Terminator franchise is that I often feel as though it’s cooked up by people who have no background in science. In order to always up the ante and make the system more frightening and powerful, they go completely off the deep end until it’s not credible at all. Then, it’s just disappointing for people who’d really like to find it provocative, and stimulating, and scary.
So who’s going to protect us from the real-life rise of the machines? Step forward a little-known body called the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER). CSER is based at the University of Cambridge, and is a multidisciplinary group of individuals – mainly scientists – whose mission, as defined on their website, is “the study and mitigation of risks that could lead to human extinction”.CSER was set up with funding from Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, which arguably makes him the real-life John Connor, making a lone stand against the real-life Skynets.