I must have missed that part about St. Elmo's Fire. I only saw it once, when HBO was young, and the possibility of R-rated boobs could have been the only conceivable reason for watching it at that age. And you know, it's not like Ahnold could ever act or anything, but he was born to play the terminator. "Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware...People try to pull the plug" (even when he uses metaphors he sounds like a robot.)
Sentient robots? I picture them as waking up to a hellish existence, like the alpha model robocops (how could you miss robocop?) that blew their brains out at the first chance.
Michael: people write thick books about that stuff. (I think the answer for now is "yes," but only if you instruct it to. Where the line between running someone else's program ends and volition and consciousness begin is far from clear (or near).)
K
"That machine just called me an asshole!"