It's hard to guess how smart the machines are, but a good rule of thumb is that they're always smarter than you think.

I wrote a query letter to an editor - a friend of a friend. The editor called me an idiot, told me never to contact an editor directly, and then recommended three literary agents he had worked with before. Laurie Fox was one of them, and I've never looked back.

Each new generation builds on the work of the previous one, gaining new perspective. New verbs are introduced. We Google strange and dangerous places. We tweet mindlessly to the cosmos. We Facebook our own grandmothers. I, for one, don't want to be left behind.

Human reactions to robots varies by culture and changes over time. In the United States we are terrified by killer robots. In Japan people want to snuggle with killer robots.

You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs.

How much change can a person absorb before everything loses meaning Living for its own sake isn't life. People need meaning as much as they need air.

...humanity learns true lessons only in cataclysm.