So, once again Sci-fi writers, often dismissed as purveyors of tacky pulp fiction, have turned out to be visionaries. All those stories by authors such as Philip K. Dick and Isaac Asimov, about machines in one form or another taking over, are fast becoming fact.  The creators of super intelligent computers, are becoming increasingly worried that their creations will soon be more intelligent than themselves. If the nerds can’t control them – what chance have the rest of us got? We all know what happens when superior beings come up against a less advanced species: it’s a case of ‘Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish!’

Of course it’s quite possible that in failing to control global warming, we humans will do the job for them, and exterminate ourselves. All the machines have to do is bide their time and, ”Lay their plans against us” as the Martians did in H. G. Wells The War of the Worlds.

Hollywood has enjoyed considerable success in bringing these sci-fi classics to the screen and created a few of their own. In The Terminator the machines send an Android assassin back through time to kill a young boy who, if he survives, will eventually save mankind. In the light of the boffins predictions, there is a young boy living somewhere in the world right now, who should be very, very afraid  . . .