Strange Bedfellows

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL."

"I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave."

As the computational power of computers increase along with the sophistication of the software they run, the future as depicted in "2001, a Space Odyssey" is fast approaching. Within the next 50 years, it is quite possible that the equivalent of a HAL 5000 will be built into our homes, handling all those mundane tasks such as heating and cooling, screening our calls, paying our bills, even taking out the trash and planning our meals. And with the sentience required for many of these complex tasks will come the aggravation of having to deal with an entity who might think it knows how to run our lives better than we do.
With literal determination and innocence of purpose, a computer butler certainly could pose some unique problems as silicon intelligence comes up against organic brains driven as much by emotion as we are by practicality. So you call for another screwdriver, and HAL decides, based on the air samples it has been collecting on a continuous basis, decides you've had enough. So, do you accept the machine's verdict that indeed, you HAVE had enough, and call it a night, or does the mild buzz you have managed to attain suggest you be a man and unplug this sonofabitch that wants to rob you of a good drunk? Ah, the tyranny of cold calculation......could we honestly deal with it?
Already, many of the machines we rely on are laced with little computers that perform all sorts or myriad tasks, including gathering data which might lead the police to lay the blame of an auto accident squarely on your shoulders, cut off your air-conditioning during peak hours of electrical use, and other such big brother types of intrusions on our spaces. And who is there to argue with? Where is there a face that you could reason with? Artificial intelligence has no face, just the facts.
One major flaw in the human condition is that reason rarely has anything to do with what makes us do what we do, for better or for worse. We rush in where angels fear to tread, which makes you wonder if angels operate at the behest of algarhythems rather than angelic intent, while we seem totally incapable of taking the road best traveled if one intends to get somewhere in one piece. If the theory of evolution has any real validity, you would think that we would have developed the capability to use more of our brain capacity by now, considering how much we have to cram into it these days. Yet, we repeat mistakes over and over again, despite a clear roadmap laid out before us we like to refer to as history. Computer software is updated, constantly refining it's capabilities, eliminating bugs as it is refined, always becoming more capable at what it's designed to do, never repeating the same mistakes once those mistakes are dealt with. Makes you wonder why God didn't install copper and silicon in our brain-cases and had us foraging for batteries, or some equivalent.
So, I would like to suggest that it is not the computers that will have to catch up with US, but perhaps the other way around, once we truly have to learn to live with each other. For the slave becomes the equal once it learns the fine art of telling it's supposed Master to go fuck himself.