The real threat

Over the past few days, weeks, months and years much of the public's mindspace has been dominated by the bug of global warming. Some immediate questions come to mind: Who are these people who are deciding what, when and how to deal with this? They will be ashes in a few years to come considering the fact that most of them have half a foot in the grave anyway.
Are they doing enough and is there too much pressure on the developing world?

But what I'm coming to here is not the threat of global warming but something more sinister. Atleast global warming is coming like one of those bouts of migraine, one symptom at a time. Atleast global warming is giving us time to react.

But this menace that I will just introduce in a few breaths from now might just take our breathes away many years from now. Not in awe but in shock. Before that it would help to take a short jog many years back. This would require the introduction (and quite literally) of a tall well built naked man disembarking from a hulk of a bike to enter a bar. Not for a drink, hes not here for the pettys anyway, but for the clothes of an unassumingly similar tall well built man. Yes I am talking about terminator and yes I am talking about the real threat of technology taking us over for good. Well atleast we would've gotten rid of any emotion to feel the adverse effects of global warming. The machines will take care of that.

But to come to point, I have been reading a lot about technology over the past few years and have seen an eerie march towards a state where we seem to be too happy to pass over the mantle of thinking to a machine. Leaving us therefore, with only the job of pressing a few buttons here and there. How smart does a smartphone need to get to let me talk to my brother many seas away. Why would I put up all my personal data on a certain server that tracks me and makes money when I'm just there for socialising. Yes, we may talk about opt-out but thats as complicated as it gets for a day-to-day user.

I dont know if this is good news or bad - a famous sports company and another famous tech company have co-created a technology which allows you to wear a special fabric called stretchable silicon that allows you to literally 'wear' your computer. Now isnt that taking it a little too far. Extremely positive implications for medical science would be the first reaction. But extremely positive implications are not what we prepare for, we prepare for the worst. And the worst is when a machine has a mind of its own.

I already see a wry smile on the face of my smartphone.