The futurist Ray Kurzweil has coined the term 'Singularity' for the point in time when machine power exceeds the power of the human brain and moreover, become far superior to humans in it's capacity almost instantaniously, the idea that once that point is reache it will cause an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that would, qualitatively, far surpass all human intelligence (wikipedia see technological singularity) . I see no reason to doubt his predictions. There are a lot of questions that should be addressed now, before this event happens. We don't want a 'Terminator' scenerio. If you think that is a 'fantasy'', then do this - Think about the genius of Jules Verne: he described things that at the time were considered fantastic and impossible (at one time no one was sure a man could survive going faster that the speed of sound as well), things like space travel, submarines, nuclear power, television, radio, all things we know exist and some use everyday. Isaac Asimov createe the "Three Laws of Robotics" well in advance of a sentient robot, but is it enough? We as a species need to be aware of the fact that once the genie of sentient machines is out of the bottle, it can't be put back in. The latest predictions by futurists is that this will happen in less than 25 yrs, I will be 86 in 25 yrs and sure hope to be living to see it. It may be that we become the sentient robots, by uploading our own consciousness into a machine. This has been called "The death of death" and the point where humans can essentially live to the end of time. It would have probably already happened if it weren't for the 800 yrs that religion rulled the world. I would expect humans will explore space (if we survive asteroids, supervolcanoes, and nuclear war, all of which with the exception of nuclear war are inevitable) with bodies we create to survive the harsh conditions of space travel.