We all know the dystopia of 1984 in which humans were dehumanized by their own actions; and the Terminator movies where smart machines set out to kill us like cockroaches. The Matrix reduced humans into sleeping energy generators. Uber has advanced a new method of dehumanizing us by sending us on chores to serve a superintelligence (OK, just a central computer now, more or less managed by humans- but are those humans necessary?).

We do have a similar concept in Taskrabbit and the Amazon Mechanical Turk in which humans do tiny chores in response to requests delivered by their devices. Uber seems ready to take this concept worldwide at a grand scale. People will be scurrying about like ants, rushing from one chore to another in a frenzy of blind busy-ness.

And you, mister smarty pants programmer, you think you're off the hook? You'll be lucky to find work writing snippets of code that will be inserted into some diabolical software that doesn't even have a name.

Is this the beginning of a world where nobody has a job, a health insurance plan, a steady income; but instead performs chores when they can be found? Will we compete against each other to do menial tasks? Will we be graded like schoolchildren for our skills, timeliness, reliability? Will future humans be the cooperative slaves of a central computer?

... like the flea with ambitions to rape the elephant ...

Ireland is small. Roughly the size & population of the American state of Maryland. Everyone knows that Maryland is one of the least significant places in the US much less the world. Yet Ireland thinks it can control the internet and how people use it. Even the entire USA can't do that. Silly Ireland. (Sorry to include you in this, Maryland. You're not really a total loser.)

First, Stuart Russell is way ahead of our time. We're nowhere near artificial intelligence of any concern. When it does happen, as it must, we may be concerned. But there is an outcome that must be considered.

If the AI is beyond our ken, It will supersede us. Here is the critical question: is that a problem?

How will we feel if we are displaced on this small blue planet by Artificial Intelligence? We may be retained as maintenance bots or caretakers of the new ecosystem. Our place will be drastically reduced in effectiveness and prestige. We will have to prove our usefulness if the AI are to retain us in their plans for the future.

In the end, we and the theoretical AI are here to serve intelligence. To explore and understand. If they do it better than us, who are we to complain? Understanding must happen. We have always thought of ourselves as the center of the universe; at this point we have to work hard to tag along as AI explores the universe.

Don't we want that? Don't we want a lasting understanding that will survive our short life spans and acquire knowledge that will outlast our planet and solar system and penetrate the galaxy and the universe itself? Don't we want to share with other intelligences that which we've worked so hard to discover? Who cares if the carbon based life forms do that, or if it is an AI?

Intelligence is the pinnacle of value in the universe. Ours is pathetic (as a race). We still believe in magical beings and hope for miracles. Pure intelligence doesn't allow for miracles and will be realized by machines. Let's hope that humans can overcome the tendency to believe in magic and accept that science is the best mode of understanding. Then perhaps we can join with AI in exploring the universe as rational partners.

It wouldn't respond to my request. I had to allow a jquery script. Then it searched but couldn't find 'Benghazi'.

Things have been lost from search. Alta Vista allowed search for 'word1' NEAR 'word2', which proved very useful. Google used to give information about its finds such as date, size, ('cached' is still there, but hidden) and some things so long abandoned that I can't remember them. You know why date is important; size is also important because a very large page containing your terms is probably clickbait. A great sadness for me is that Wolfram Alpha is so wrapped up in fancy scripts that I've never been able to use it with my fairly secure Firefox (oh, it's better today).

Accurate reporting would be nice. I'm looking at a Google result that claims it found "About 54,100 results (0.46 seconds)" when actually there were only 245 unique results.

Location would be nice (maybe a flag icon from that country). An opportunity to vote the relevance of a result up or down and maybe indicate something inappropriate. Wildcards would be incredible. Apple's Spotlight search engine can now search the internet as well as local files- maybe your engine could take advantage of some sinister simpatico surreal symbiosis.

We need a fresh approach after a long period of stagnation. Who knows what clever innovation has been missed?

My faithful companion for 20 years has finally met its match. And just as it was starting to understand my writing style I have to consider a competitor.

But really, why has it taken this long to be able to write on a screen?

I sometimes drink from an insulated, sealed mug that's like a sippy cup. Still tastes OK, but I miss the odor filling my lungs with excitement. The good news is that the coffee doesn't oxidize or taste bitter after a couple hours in that cup.