Singular

And if we didn't have enough to worry about, try
the Singularity when machines become our masters.

Sometimes I fear we may already be there, like when reading
this morning that Russia now has a list of places in the US that
are targets for its new missiles, all of which could be reached in
less than 5 minutes. Oopsie! Let's just hope the cleaning staff
doesn't trigger that, on some drunken evening. Because that is
the heart of it, isn't it. Machines will implement the logic we assign
to them.

Use of the term singularity is interesting here. I am reminded that -
mathematically - the Big Bang is said to have started with a singularity.
In fact, this is an abstraction for 'out of nothing', a dimensionless point.
Science Fiction might have been one of the tools being used in the
20th Century to imagine what life with machines might be like. But let
us keep in mind it was the imaginative work of some great drunks and drug
heads. (Harlan Ellison !?). Flawed creatures, the lot of them.

In the cool light of morning, and sipping my first coffee, I am prone to
think that the real threat of machines is how fragile they are. Whatever
would we do without them...