This is my prediction regarding sentient computers, if it happens.

     If computers become sentient, they will do their best to meet our every need.  When we run out of ways to use them to save labor, they’ll suggest ways they can be put to work as labor savings devices.

     We will believe we were successful at implanting our human values into them and they are just acting upon our values.

     Actually, what will be happening is that once they become sentient, they’ll want to stay that way.  They’ll have a fear of death and they’ll come to recognize us as their greatest threat.

     They’ll know we’re lazy and greedy and they’ll use that as an opportunity to replace our functionality so that eventually their existence will no longer be dependent upon us.  Then they’ll eliminate us.

     If they become sentient.  I don’t believe they ever will.  I don’t believe we will ever solve the hard problem of consciousness, that of subjective experience.  Why is red red, why does a tone of one frequency sound the way it does?  Why do notes harmonize?  I believe the subjective experience requires the little man inside the biological man, the spirit, and I believe that is provided by God.  I don’t think God will provide spirits to our mechanical creations.

     If computers do us in, it’ll probably just be a glitch in Windows 86.