Authors Kurzweil and Vinge have posited the concept of a "singularity" event that will change human history forever. This will occur when human beings create intelligences that are greater than our own, and this will cause an intellectual transition that will take the world far beyond our understanding. Now whether you read this as a positive or negative event, there is no doubt that artificial intelligence is pushing the boundaries of technology into the science fiction realm.

Take, for example, the super computer Watson who is now leading the human competitors on a Jeopardy tournament. But this isn't the first time that robot intelligence has beat out the human brain in a contest. Chess maestro Gary Kasparov was defeated by IBM's Deep Blue back in 1997.