DARPA Tried To Build Skynet In The 1980s

From 1983 to 1993 DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) spent over $1 billion on a program called the Strategic Computing Initiative. The agency's goal was to push the boundaries of computers, artificial intelligence, and robotics to build something that, in hindsight, looks strikingly similar to the dystopian future of the Terminator movies. They wanted to build Skynet.
Skynet is a fictional, self-aware artificial intelligence system. Skynet's operations are almost exclusively performed by war-machines, cyborgs and other computer systems, with a continuing goal being the extinction of the human race.