I don't believe that The Terminator got it right. It won't be killer robots from the future that will extinguish the human race, it will be the apoplexy that minor features of technology can engender.
For example, take this morning (please, take it anywhere you like). I found myself stuck in a traffic jam on my way in to work. Despite having left oodles of time to get there, I was in danger of missing the start of my class. So, using the nifty hands-free phone system in the car, I rang ahead to warn them I might be late. All well and good. A few minutes later, my wife rang, presumably to find out why I wasn't at my destination. I made the mistake of pressing the wrong button on this hands-free thing and succeeded in cutting her off. I tried to ring back, it wouldn't do it. My wife rang again but the system wouldn't let me answer. The system then decided to derecognise the phone altogether. As I drove on, with the phone ringing ever more urgently but being totally unable to legally answer it, my frustration grew. It grew even further when, on reaching work, I tried to use the phone conventionally to ring home and found that now that did not work at all. My blood pressure, at this point, could have usefully powered a small town.
Lord preserve me from technological advances!
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