I’m starting on a new story, this one about my grandmother. In 1969, I asked her about man stepping on the moon as the greatest technical/scientific achievement of all time. In her view, it was the electric light.

My lazy mind, free associating, thought of the movies Matrix and Terminator along with a host of others that sees a dystopic scientific future in which artificial intelligence takes over and oppresses humankind.

You don’t see much of what we think of as artificial intelligence, but if we define it as sheer and simple computer power — the artificial intellectual power to store data and to make many mathematical calculations very quickly — then there’s lots of it globally.

Sometime in the mid 80s, supposedly 1986 the year of the internet, we passed the Turing Point. Mathematician Alan Turing hypothesized that there would be a point at which there was more artificial memory than human memory.

My friend, The Gary, is getting his key to the 21st Century and is having trouble making his order, but he, too, will soon be wired.

I want the new Intel powered Mac, superfast screamer that it’s been described.

The number and sheer computing power of individually owned computers is beyond my capacity to imagine, except I know it’s a buttload.

There are starting to be attempts to get all those computers organized. Like, back in the day we used to talk about everybody turning themselves in with a single joint to destroy the unfair justice system or everybody hold hands and pray or send good vibes to Vietnam.

Now, we’re all supposed to consider giving up our screensaver time to listen for SETI or calculate Pi or something.

But what if you’re the guy that joins up and creates the dystopic A.I. that destroys humanity?

Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass?

Most popular asshole in all of cyberspace.

You’d never get a Match.com date again.