The notion of artificial intelligence taking over the world has been in our collective consciousness, in the back of our minds like the notion of our sweet children turning into terrible teenagers, at least since the 1995 release of Kubrick/Spielberg's film A.I.. Our children are teenagers and it’s the world around them that’s become terrible.
In a country so ravaged by gun violence I think it was natural for us to assume that if/when the robots took over that it would be with guns. Not every American however decides to invite guns to bed while we all have cozied up to computers. Many moons ago when I was a teenager my father would spend his Saturdays crafting the bulletin for Sunday's church service and I would spend those afternoons folding hundreds of bulletins, after we got back from getting them printed at the local print shop. It was what my partner refers to as "Level 2 Fun", the kind that doesnt seem fun at the time but that you recall fondly after the fact. My father bulit a computer, I'm not sure how he knew how to do that without having computers to ask, and the family was promised more time with pops Saturday afternoon, thanks to the computers assistance. Before long the church bulletin was getting done in half the time, and so my father took on other church assignments that could be completed on the computer and learned to buy used books on Amazon, when that was all they sold. Out of a job I found a place in my bedroom to be a terrible teenager.
The computers may not shoot you but they may shoot down an opportunity to call a family member or friend the next time you need to know how many cups are in two litres. As a responsible gun owner keeps their firearms locked and out of reach of the babies we ought to resist the temptation to shove screens in our childrens faces. The algorithms that choose the programming aim to addict, as they have been instructed.
Dare to resist.