The Architect's TV screens is a common point of confusion when watching the conversation between the Architect and Neo. Many people think these screens only represent Neos from the past, but archived responses of past Neos are shown only some of the time, and there are a lot more than five TV screens in the room, which is the number of predecessors Neo has. The TV screens primarily show all of Neo's possible immediate responses at any given time.
The first thing we see in the Source (before even seeing the Architect) are the TV screens which are all identically showing Neo as he stands in the room. At that current time, Neo is not making any choices, and that is why there are no "alternate" Neos to look at on the TV. This also explains why the camera zooms in to one particular screen possibility that represents one unique responsive choice Neo can make during the course of his conversation with the Architect. Even the Architect doesn't know which TV screen shows Neo's actual response each time until he actually makes the response.
What supports this idea is that we never see anything on a TV screen that we haven't already seen, except for Trinity fighting with the Agents and falling out the window, which comes straight from Neo's dream. The TV screens are merely the output of a program probably written by the Architect to read Neo's mind and display it in images on the TV screens.
As impressive as these TV screens might seem, these screens actually represent the Architect's weakness, not his strength. Remember that the Oracle said in M2, "You and I may not be able to see past our own choices, but that man can't see past any choice." If these TV screens represent the Architect's vision, we can see how primitive it is compared to what the Oracle can see. It makes sense that the Architect is so focused on possible choices at any given moment, because choice represents his primary limiting agent when it comes to understanding his own creation.
Also, the TV screens of the Architect appear briefly in M1. Just before Agent Smith questions Neo, we see many TV screens showing Neo sitting in the interrogation room. We zoom into one of those screens in the exact same manner that we zoom into Neo in M2 when he is speaking with the Architect. This means that the Architect was already watching Neo and knew Neo's identity within the system long before that.
This also extends the parallel between the Architect and God - he watches over his people in the Matrix. Also, the Architect doesn't just eat popcorn while watching the Matrix. Like God, he takes an active role in his creation. In MxO, the Architect even met himself with machines and gave them a plan to help defeat sleepwalkers when they managed to drain massive amounts of power using the "Piece of Blue Skies" concerts around Megacity.
One reader expressed concern that all of the past Neos in the TV screens look exactly like the current Neo. One explanation he offered was to suggest that maybe the Neos on the TV screens are not past Neos.
We see that many TVs are showing scenes from Neo’s past. This continues while the Architect gives his initial speech. This doesn’t necessarily prove anything, but does at least establish that “historical video recordings” is something the Architect has easy and instant access to, and that the Architect indeed does use the TVs sometimes to show things from the past.
But now for actual evidence. First consider one part of the actual M2 script:
| Architect: The Matrix is older than you know. I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next, in which case this is the 6th version. TV Neos: 5 'One's before me? 4 3 2 What are you talking about? Architect: I am the Architect. I created the Matrix. I've been waiting for you. |
The presence of this “4 3 2” in the script should concern anyone who believes that none of these Neos are from the past.
And if you listen to what those Neos say very carefully (probably requiring listening many times), in addition to hearing the number 5, you’ll hear other numbers too. I can hear “2” and “3” in the audio. Click here to listen to the short audio clip.
Finally, if there were any doubt about hearing "three" in the audio clip, the image to the left shows a past Neo holding three fingers up. This would make no sense under the assumption that all the Neos in the TV are current Neos, unless we are to believe that Neo needs to go back to kindergarten and learn to count.
 Architect |  Architect: Equation |