Monday night was the last new episode of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles until February. The subplot featured Agent Ellison’s hesitant attempts to tutor a nascent artificial intelligence that may or may not grow up to become Skynet, the computer system that attempts to destroy humanity in the future. To speed the process, Ellison’s boss has hooked the A.I. up to the recovered body of a previously-dispatched terminator, explaining to the horrified Ellison that “Many believe that tactile experience is integral to A.I. development.” This was a spot on statement, directly echoing the work of people like Rodney Brooks and his colleagues at the MIT Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.
