China Plans “Skynet” for the Moon

China is planning to build a large base on the moon in the 2030s, with science labs, housing for astronauts, and a fleet of robots. It is also planning to bring up the advanced technologies that enable its 600-million camera Skynet system to surveil the Chinese people.
 
“Skynet” is, of course, familiar to American ears as the AI villain in the Terminator movies. It is also the actual term China uses in English for its surveillance network, a term deriving from an ancient Chinese proverb that includes the line, “There is forever a net in the sky.” Stephen Chen of the South China Morning Post informs us that the meaning here is that those who do wrong or resist the regime will not escape the celestial net.
 
China’s experience with the Skynet system, which fields two cameras for every Chinese adult, has taught the regime how to manage such amounts of surveillance data. This knowledge will be useful in building out a Skynet for the moon. The purpose, say Chinese aerospace agencies, is to create a massive video surveillance system that is “capable of identifying, locating, tracking and aiming at suspicious targets independently.”
 
If so, perhaps the moon really will be looking down on us.