Artificial Intelligence and Other Horrors

I’ve just returned from the front, and the situation is dire. The machines are advancing and it will soon be the death of us. Technology is evolving at such a pace that we may very well witness machines of our same intelligence and power within the next few decades.
Just consider the long history of human struggle with technology. It was only 50 years ago that the United States built the first digital general-purpose computer, the ENIAC. Earlier computer designs were mechanical and/or utility specific. Today we use computers in all aspects of our life, from the cash register at the local grocery store to the microchips running our automobile. Now we have to struggle with having our identities stolen while checking our e-mail, while knowing that government computers are mining our activities in search of terrorists.
The struggle will not end anytime soon, not with the emergence of artificial intelligence technologies into our modern life. It is already here and closer than the keyboard of your computer. Artificial intelligence is used in medicine to filter images in the first step of diagnosis. Banks use data mining to uncover abnormal behavior in its transactions. It is an integral component of every search engine, and a common part of e-mail spam filters.
Now I’m just a battlefield journalist, but I’m tired of seeing my brethren swimming upstream. The Cylon disaster in Battlestar Galactica should remove all doubt about my position, unless you prefer to someday be staring down the barrel of a Centurion.
The impending apocalypse might still be averted, but it will require the complete elimination of all artificial intelligence from military and robotic systems. It is either that or witness the complete destruction of humankind somewhere down the road in the next few centuries.