Are mobile phones the new Skynet? 'Terminator' director thinks so

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If you have a temperamental touchscreen cellphone, you probably already think that gremlins periodically take over your device, but now "Terminator" and "Avatar" director James Cameron has a better explanation for that mind of its own some smartphones seem to have: They really are smarter than you, and they're already the boss of you.

TMZ captured a quote from Cameron, whose "Terminator 2" pegged yesterday — April 19, 2011 — as the day the AI defense system Skynet became self aware, which would lead to Judgment Day and the near-annihilation of the human race (in his movies). (Hard-core fans dispute the date, which is covered in Helen Popkin's Skynet story earlier today.)

"Kyle Reese said in the first film that it was only 'one possible future.' Clearly, not the one we're in," Cameron told the celebrity site. "Maybe Kyle, Sarah, John and the T-800 changed things enough to steer us away from that possible future." 

(And maybe, Mr. Cameron, you should remember it was just a movie.)

Here's the quote that plays to that notion the devices that have become our extra appendages are little soldiers in the Skynet army.

So if cellphones are the shadow army, what would laptops, tablets, electric cars and MP3 players be considered?

More stories:

• Skynet's top 10 tweets (before Judgment Day)
• Robot cleans ickiness around the toilet
• Robots, relationships and ruin, 'Enslaved' delivers gorgeous, cinematic gaming

Check out Technolog on Facebook, and on Twitter, follow Athima Chansanchai, who admits that her smartphone does exert an unusual amount of power in her life.