A DATA FILM COMPANION · 183 YEARS, VERIFIED
Every event below is documented: declassified files, parliamentary reports, SEC filings, peer-reviewed papers. Green is reality. Amber is fiction. White is the builders saying so, on the record. Filter the threads and walk the years.
1843
The first published algorithm, and the "originates nothing" objection Turing later names for her.
1921
Coins the word "robot." Ends in machine revolt. 25 years before ENIAC.
1927
The false Maria: the machine double on film.
1942
An alignment framework published 14 years before "AI" had a name (Astounding, March 1942).
1944
First programmable electronic computer, breaking Lorenz at Bletchley. Classified until 1974.
1950
"The Human Use of Human Beings": automation's moral consequences, from cybernetics' founder.
1951
"...we should have to expect the machines to take control."
1954
Air defense at ~4x Manhattan Project cost; 80% of IBM's computer revenues 1952-55; begets SABRE.
1956
Dartmouth workshop. The field gets its name 12 years after Colossus ran.
1952-55
SAGE = 80% of IBM's computer revenues
1963
$2.2M to MIT's Project MAC; the MIT, Stanford and CMU AI labs run on defense money for decades.
1964
Federal share of ALL US R&D peaks at 66.8%. The state is building the base.
1965
I.J. Good, Turing's Bletchley colleague, defines it in print. 19 years before The Terminator.
1966
A secret defense computer seizes control, published while the real Colossus was still classified.
1968
Built with MIT AI Lab founder Marvin Minsky advising Kubrick. The field consulted on its own nightmare.
1969
A ~$1M ARPA contract builds the first routers. State contract, future industry.
1971
Automated keyword "dictionaries" filter global communications. Confirmed by the European Parliament in 2001.
1972
SRI's DARPA-funded robot plans and navigates; the A* algorithm ships in every GPS since.
1976
DARPA's speech program at CMU. Voice AI is a 50 year old military project.
1980
Fully autonomous search, track, engage, kill-assess. Deployed 1980. Still serving.
1983
Strategic Computing Initiative: autonomous land vehicle, pilot's associate, battle management. Public.
1983
Three years after NORAD's real false alerts, including the 46 cent chip reporting 2,200 inbound missiles.
1984
Reagan screens WarGames, asks the Joint Chiefs; NSDD-145, the first computer security directive, follows.
1984
Releases one year after DARPA's public autonomous weapons roadmap. Reality did not need the film.
1985
DARPA's ALV, Martin Marietta test site, May 31, 1985. Self-driving is 41 years old.
1985
Walks off the Star Wars panel and publishes why autonomous defense software can't be trusted.
May 31, 1985
A vehicle drives itself in Colorado
1988
Aegis classified the airliner correctly; the crew misread it under stress. 290 dead. Human-machine systems fail.
1989
ALVINN drives CMU's Navlab. Neural-network driving, 37 years ago.
1991
One Gulf War logistics AI credited with repaying 30 years of DARPA AI funding.
1993
FinCEN's FAIS scores 200,000 transactions a week for laundering risk. Production AI, 1993.
1993
A counterdrug program builds the benchmark the modern industry grew from.
1995
Navlab 5 steers 2,850 miles, Pittsburgh to San Diego, 98% autonomous. In a minivan.
1998
Autonomous takeoff, navigation, landing; later crosses the Pacific unmanned.
1999
The CIA's venture arm makes the loop official doctrine. Palantir's S-1 later proves it.
2001
The NSA system with built-in privacy protections dies 3 weeks before 9/11; its whistleblower gets prosecuted.
2002
DARPA's own IAO program descriptions: HumanID, Genisys, TIA. Defunded 2003; pieces continue.
2003
DARPA's biggest AI project becomes Siri (2007), then Apple's (2010). Lab to pocket in 8 years.
2005
DARPA Grand Challenge, then Google's 2009 team, then Waymo 2016, then $16B of Q1 2026's mega-rounds.
8 YEARS
DARPA's CALO to Siri in your pocket
2007
Revealed 2013: a 6 year gap. Hemisphere's call-record analytics reach back to 1987.
2012
ML over 55M phone subscribers, scoring courier behavior. Methodology later called "completely bullshit."
2013
Snowden: PRISM, XKeyscore, the architecture, much of it a decade old at disclosure.
2016
RAND: Chicago's predictive policing scores didn't reduce crime. Deployed on citizens anyway.
6 to 30 YEARS
The measured gap between operation and public knowledge
2018
4,000+ Google employees protest Pentagon AI; the Joint AI Center stands up the same year.
2023
The extinction-risk statement, signed by the CEOs of the 3 leading labs. Hinton leaves Google to speak.
2023
Thousands of attritable autonomous systems ordered for delivery within 24 months.
2025
A ~10% US equity stake in Intel; Stargate announced at the White House; sovereign funds in the OpenAI round.
2026
4 companies take 63% of Q1 venture funding. No comprehensive US federal AI law. UN treaty talks, year 12.