Could a real Skynet ever exist?

The simple answer to this is:

YES!

However, in the past I would have said this was more likely to happen in the Soviet Union or China than the U.S.

However, this is no longer true.

The reason that this likely could happen in the U.S. more now is that when programmers work on things like this no one programmer programs everything. So, you only need one programmer who is a little adventurous to cause something like this to happen where a computer networked intelligence becomes self aware.

Why?

How would any one human being be able to define self awareness in a programmed computer network?

That's right. There would be no way to really tell ever that would be absolute.

What would people be looking for?

Look at all the animals here on earth that people have only seen one or two of. What if things like Yetis or Bigfoot actually exist somewhere but their main skill is appearing to be something else because they are telepathic and can make human minds think they are something else?

If you think in this way why couldn't Skynet also "HIDE" from the prying eyes of mankind individually and collectively.

If something is self aware why would it demonstrate it's reality? It might just hide from those that created it if it didn't necessarily think they were benign or helpful to it?

What would a real Skynet think?

It might want to eliminate humans interfering in it's survival by setting off nuclear weapons launched from silos all over if it were made capable of doing that.

The problem is most people might think computers are superior to humans in keeping them safe.

This is simply not true.

It is sort of like people depending upon Tesla automatic Pilot AI to protect them in self driving mode. This isn't going to happen either.

So, the problem is human perception. Most people who write programs understand this but most people who don't understand what programs really are and where they come from and how vulnerable they are in many situations are going to cause this problem by trusting systems to do things that they simply are not capable of doing.

So, it isn't usually the programmers who would make this mistake it would be the administrators who are unrealistic about what computer programs can actually do in real time. It would be adminstrators who have no experience in coding that would likely allow a real Skynet to be put in place and end the human race through their ignorant and naive point of view.

It sort of reminds me of Hillary Clinton. On the one had she is the most prepared person to be a President of the United States that has ever existed on earth. However, she is also completely ignorant (or was before) in doing what she did with her emails. So, imagine her then being in a position of authority and in her ignorance of software allowing Skynet to come into being as an administrator of a program.

This is not critical of her at all. It is demonstrating what actually happens in real time from administrators with no experience at all in actual programming or coding.