The recent releases of Matrix Reloaded and T3 have brought back that perennial question, will machines rule the world someday? Ping na Thalang has written an essay on the subject in the Bangkok Post that suggests we don't need intelligent machines to rule the world, just a super-virus of the type that preys on insecure operating systems like Windows. He also suggests that actual intelligent machines would be more likely to take over the world not to destroy humans but to stop humans from destroying the world in a nuclear war. Meanwhile, Marshall Brain has written an essay titled Robotic Nation, describing a different route to world domination for robots. He predicts that by 2050, robots will take over more than 50% of all low paying jobs in the US, unemploying millions of humans less skilled than robots. There's also a Slashdot discussion of the Brain article.