Hawking: Computers double their performance every 18 months

"In contrast with our intellect, computers double their performance every 18 months," says Hawking. "So the danger is real that they could develop intelligence and take over the world."
The best-selling author of A Brief History of Time says "we should follow this road [of genetic engineering] if we want biological systems to remain superior to electronic ones."

end quote by Stephen Hawking from:

Stephen Hawking: Humans will fall behind AI | ZDNet

If you want to see science fiction examples of this two of the most popular are: 

"The Terminator Series" and "I Robot" with Will Smith in books and movies.

I think AI (artificial intelligence) should be looked at differently. If you build friends rather than technology with a warlike software, you can build friends rather than "Terminators" that can or will extinct mankind.

It all depends upon what kind of programming you design into it. If you make the programming human like or humane you will be building friends. 

But if you are building drones carrying nuclear weapons who can be autonomous (acting with or without human intervention) then you are building potential "Terminators" that can end life(or nearly end life) on earth just like Skynet does in Terminator.

The drones with Hellfire missiles for example could be the Skynet of tomorrow for much of mankind including people here in the U.S. and Europe if we are not very careful.

The problem with all weapons designed and built is that eventually they tend to get used on people and those people die. So, understanding that almost every weapon ever built gets used on people this is a good place to start to create a more friendly world where some humans can still survive on into the future.