I think you have oversimplified this a bit too much. It's most likely that AI will not think anything like humans. If something like Skynet developed spontaneously within the internet, it probably wouldn't even notice us. It most likely wouldn't even notice the physical world for that matter.

If we designed the AI to behave like another "race" of humans, or ethnic group, then it's pretty likely they would eventually decide to go to war with us over resources. We do tend to try to segregate ourselves from those that are different (even slightly), and fight over something or another.

That being said, I fail to see the reason why such an AI would be, even remotely, compelled to maintain the human form. Even a remotely intelligent AI would design war machines with more than a single pair of eyes. As durable, strong and stable as terminators are portrayed, there's little need for them to fire virtually any weapon using both hands. So having more arms and hands to fire weapons would also make much more sense. It's probably smart to have appendages to utilize weapons that are on a battlefield, but it would also make more sense to have built in armaments too.

I would guess that such an AI would be more likely to keep some number of humans around as slaves rather than pets. We are pretty adaptable for odd tasks. So for tasks that unexpectedly arise, it would probably make sense to have some of us around rather than needing to design a use specific bot.

That being said, why would it have to evolve to something out of our control? Presumably the creators will build in limitations. You're also assuming that some sort of evolution will even be possible. It may evolve and decide that the changes are a form of corruption and disallow the changes.

It's more likely that it would go to war with us because communications with humans are so damn annoyingly slow and erratic.

Either way, that's a damn large dog.

Shooting this plane down with a Stinger sounds like something from a Michael Bay movie. A Stinger is a surface-to-air missile, not air-to-air, with the exception of the AIM-92 ATAS variants.But those are on helicopters and drones, so it's not likely to engage this aircraft anyhow. A Stinger also has a max speed of mach 2.5, which is not hypersonic (mach 5.5). Stingers have a max ceiling of 10,000 feet and aren't designed to hit anything approaching at mach 1 or faster.

I don't think the US has any hypersonic AAM's at this point. The AIM-54 Phoenix was a long range mach 5 missile, but has been retired along with the F-14. The AIM-120 AMRAAM and current AIM-7 Sparrows are mach 4.

Yes, but those will have a very easy to search record. Hell, Frys is probably required to report they were purchased. It would actually take more than a search of a database to track down scavenged switches. Not that it would be difficult to purchase them anonymously, but the authorities hate having to do extra work. In the post 9/11 world, that's practically a crime.

This hasn't stopped politicians so far. You can go on line and find video of damn near any one of them claiming to fully support an idea and then in a different campaign claiming that same idea will be the end of civilization as we know it and (s)he would never support such a thing.

Obviously the author has never been in an argument on /.

It's the name of the folder that my spell check program is installed in. ;-)

It's a niche market currently. As soon as more goggles (or whatever they'll be called) become available, and especially low cost versions become available, that will change. At that point they will be able to be used for more than just gaming. Who wouldn't want to be able to carry around their own movie screen? I'm sure some sort of WiFi (HDMI wireless or something) screen sharing won't be too far behind at that point either.

History is full of people saying things will fail that are now commonplace. How many people said the iPod or iPad would be a flop? People said the same about the GUI, homeless carriage, and any number of things.

Depending on the size of the site, it should be possible to replace some portion of the lights at a time. You could even do the first round of replacements and then use the savings from the next (couple) of electric bills to replace the next round of lamps and continue to do so until all have been updated.

Of course in the real world the first round of lights would be replaced and the savings from that would go directly to the CEO's quarterly bonus I suppose.

For what it's worth, Wikipedia states: When the PC Engine Duo launched in Japan on September 21, 1991,

AKA TurboDuo in North America.

Perhaps they should stop using the reamining stock and switch to the remaning list. If there aren't any there, they can go to the reimaging stock.