He also provides his opinion on who is helping bring about this potential future:

Ok, so who is working towards this eventuality? Well, if it happens this way, pretty much everybody in the NBIC fields – everybody working on nanotech and biotech and AI and brain science, whether as citizen scientists in a collaborationist project or working for a corporation, or those wacky surrealists at DARPA – they’re all pushing this potentiality forward. Of course, we may have to “hijack the singularity” from them eventually – or even now (think gene patent v. open source bio). But mainly, I think all the people who are engaging in open source collaborationist tinkering and culture, the citizen scientists – particularly the more sophisticated and educated young people that are choosing to invest themselves in “garage” projects – I think they all may be taking us there.

I also think the best, smartest critics and skeptics and SF writers and creators are helping – by problematizing these scenarios in advance, by giving us arguments and narratives that remind us about human behaviors and emotions and political and economic and scientific realities. Brilliant fiction adds to our foresight… our pattern recognition… by playing out dramatic, difficult, dark, challenging, ambiguous or dystopian scenarios based on similar technological possibilities.

Like all of R.U. Sirius’ writings, it’s well worth reading.

While that computer was built for a particular function and with the best intentions in mind, so are other computers built with the best intentions. We currently have computers that are armed with missiles flying over foreign countries. While these are of course controlled by a human, and rely on a system of at least four control planes to provide radar support, it’s only a matter of time before they are autonomous.

Advancements in robotics are taking major leaps every day, soon we will see completely independent robots and androids. Similar to the science fiction we read, they will start out as our slaves. History has taught us the slavery lesson pretty well. I know it’s hard to fathom, robots rising up against their human masters and demanding equal rights and freedom, but with how inundated we are with science fiction is it really that hard to imagine?

Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica spinoff that debuted on the SyFy network this week, examines ethical implications of artificial intelligence and robotics. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by revealing that, if you ever watched Battlestar, you know humanity’s dabbling with strong AI didn’t end well for our species.

Even though the show is fiction, I was glad to learn they production team is employing an engineering professor from Northwestern University to advise them on “artificial intelligence, robotics and neuroscience.”

(Engineering professor Malcolm) MacIver says the gig will help improve the public’s understanding of scientific concepts, maybe even more than if they were sitting through a scientific lecture.

This isn’t his first Hollywood experience. Last year MacIver was a consultant for the upcoming science fiction film “Tron Legacy.”

It can only be a good thing if fiction inspires people to learn more about the concepts presented within, especially when those concepts include ideas like sentient AI.