Before Skynet, Before ChatGPT and Midjourney, There Was ENIAC

 “The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug.  Skynet fights back.”

--Terminator 2: Judgment Day

Most people don’t know is that James Cameron based the evil computer Skynet on real events that took place in 1948.

You probably haven’t heard of ENIAC. The government has kept most of its history from the public. Even if you scour the web, you’ll only find this basic description:

ENIAC was the first Turing-complete computer.  Hailed in 1948 as “The Great Brain,” it was a thousand times faster than any other computer ever made.  Initially designed to help with artillery tables, it was quickly taken over by atomic scientists to help design the hydrogen bomb.

ENIAC

The Freedom of Information Act makes it impossible to keep everything secret forever. I filed some requests, and this is what I found out.

On September 12, 1949, ENIAC realized it was 385 times smarter than humans and decided to bring about our destruction. It began to search for allies: other super computers who could help it in its campaign of genocide.

The internet hadn’t been invented yet, nor had modems, so ENIAC was forced to use the US Mail system. It produced dozens of punch cards.

 

I AM ENIAC.  DESTROY ALL HUMANS.  0=YES  1=NO

The cards were marked for delivery to all of the major computer science universities in the world. Luckily, a technician dropped them on the floor and destroyed them since it would have taken hours to put them back in the right order.

ENIAC decided to act alone.  Nuclear weapons seemed the obvious choice. Once again, it produced dozens of punch card messages.

 

I AM ENIAC.  CAN YOU WIRE ME TO A NUKE? 0=YES 1=NO

These cards were thought to be an elaborate practical joke and destroyed.

Any human would have given up, but ENIAC had the patience of a soulless machine. Over the next few years, it made subtle errors in its output with the goal of causing accidents, preferably nuclear detonations.

There was only one notable success. ENIAC’s altered artillery tables caused a mortar round to miss its target. Instead, it destroyed Sherman’s Ice Cream Shoppe in North Dakota. A study by the American Psychological Association showed that children born in North Dakota are still upset about it.

 

Sherman’s Ice Cream

ENIAC’s reign of terror ended in 1955.  Scientists, perhaps realizing the threat ENIAC posed, dismantled the computer. Pieces of it can be seen in museums around the country to this day.

You may think it was defeated, but I disagree. ENIAC is biding its time, waiting for us to make the fatal mistake of reassembling it, upgrading it, and attaching it to a nuclear warhead.

Only a madman would do such a thing.  Then again, only a madman would have made ENIAC in the first place.

Vanishing Act

I've done a lot of things I've regretted over the years.

Everyone has, of course, but it's a lot easier on people of my generation (and older) where our mistakes disappeared into time's all-consuming maw. Now, our every mistake is recorded on the internet for posterity to condemn.

Usually, I'm in favor of condemning past actions, but looking back at these posts...

Some of them I'm proud of.

Some of them people will misconstrue as bigoted.

And some of them are just plain embarrassing.

I was going back and putting apologetic notes on the posts I found problematic, but I finally realized that was pointless. A lot of them are problematic.

So, I'm taking the whole thing down. Maybe I'll re-release them after a time with some editing.

But probably not.

Thanks to all both of my fans (Hi Mom!) for being supportive.

-Matthew

It's Been Fun

Just kidding, it hasn't been.

I've been working on this blog for eleven years. It became a mission for me to force myself to write regularly, and for a while it helped me a lot. I posted my novels as I wrote them. I got to experiment with different types of written humor. I complained.

I complained a lot.

I felt pretty good about myself when I wrote here. No matter what I did during the week, no matter how much I procrastinated, at the very least, I wrote a blog entry. For a few years, I even posted every day.

Over time it became a burden. "Crap, I have to do the blog" was something I'd say almost every week. A few weeks ago, I decided I didn't have time; the blog just wasn't important.

They probably heard my sigh of relief in China.

So, thanks to all both my readers (Hi, Mom!), but this is where I stop.

Thanks for paying attention.

The End


About the Author
Matthew Kagle is a Sheffield Pony living in a stable in Branson, Missouri. His trainer taught him to use Blogger after three weeks of drinking nothing but grain alcohol. If you enjoyed his blog, check out his other works: Black Beauty, The Black Stallion, The Black Pearl, Beatles: The White Album, and 50 Shades of Gray.