You have probably noticed that there is suddenly a lot of talk about Artificial Intelligence (A.I. or AI) and the dangers of it possibly taking over the world from us human beings. And it could be the end of the human race as we know it.

Robots and computers taking over the world with the help of A.I.

The truly scary part of this is that it is the creators of A.I. themselves who are sounding the alarms. It is the people who are racing to beat each other to the finish line and who are in line to make tons of money doing it.

This is not the first time this sort of scenario has been predicted.

For old guys like me, we have heard it before.

It was back in the early 1970s for me.

I was a college English major back then, and had always been a voracious book reader. Somehow, I found some science fiction books that I started reading. I am not sure if it was through a literature class or through some friends or perhaps I had just stumbled upon them. But I do remember reading them back in the old days, as they made an impression on me.

Several were by Isaac Asimov. Maybe you heard of him, maybe not. He had a very noticeable feature, which was his massive sideburns. He was a scientist, but also a writer. In fact, I think he wrote something like 500 books. Not all of them were science fiction, as he wrote in several genres.

I certainly did not read all of his 500 books.

However, he wrote a series of books known now as the “Foundations” books, and he also wrote several short stories about robots that were published in a book called “I, Robot.”

Back when I was in my early 20s, I loved that book. Later, in 1983, there was an Asimov book called “The Complete Robot” that contained 31 of the 37 short stories that Asimov wrote about robots.

You may not have heard about those books, but I bet you know about a movie called “I, Robot” starring Will Smith.

I liked that movie. Smith plays a detective who does not trust all the robots or the super computer named VIKI who controls them. The plot is very loosely based on Asimov’s stories, but it is a lot different as well. The main thing that is the same is The Three Laws of Robotics that was a main part of Asimov’s “I, Robot” book.

Whoever combined the short stories into a movie script did a good job, in my humble opinion.

I do, however, find it just slightly ironic that the VIKI super computer, Sonny the robot and some other special effects like a hologram and all the other robots in the movie were all created using A.I.

Also interesting (or scary) is that some new robots being unveiled recently and that can do things like dance and run marathons look an awful lot like all those robots in the “I, Robot” movie.

Another book I read back in the early 1970s was called “This Perfect Day,” by Ira Levin. Maybe you’ve heard of Ira Levin, as he wrote “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Stepford Wives.”

“This Perfect Day” is about a perfect world that is run by a super computer called Unicomp, which is buried underground in the Swiss Alps. There is one world family of humans, and the computer controls them, where they work, live, eat, who they marry, etc. They are controlled by regular drug injections, but one man, nicknamed Chip, quits taking the drugs and, well, I don’t want to spoil what happens next.

Surprisingly, “This Perfect Day” was never made into a movie, like Levin’s other books.

Then there have been other computer/robot movies and books that warn of the future, like the computer named Hal in “2001, a Space Odyssey” and the Terminator and Matrix movies, among others.

My point is that the threat of something like A.I. taking over has been foretold in the past, and yet we are still on a path to use it more and more in the future. Hopefully, what happens in these books and movies remains science fiction. And that those who can do something about it, actually do something about it.

Another interesting note, is that Isaac Asimov was born in 1920 and died in 1992. He started publishing his books around 1950, including “I, Robot,” so I am not sure when he actually wrote the “I, Robot” stories. But it seems to have been more than 75 years ago.

I guess if A.I. and robots take over, we can’t say we were not given plenty of warnings ahead of time.

I think I will just have to ask Siri or Alexa for a little more information about A.I. and whether artificial intelligence is safe or not.

I am sure they will tell me the truth.