The second I read the script, about a robot becoming self-aware after being struck by lightning, I put it down and said: "This is a hit." It was a timeless story about an underdog, a friendship and being an outsider. It also had John Badham as director who had done Saturday Night Fever and War Games. He knew how to make a movie like this work. It felt like a piece that was going to be around a long time and I grabbed it with both hands.

In an age where high-tech totalitarianism is a genuine concern, this year, Fast Company started pushing "robot rights": Before we create an AI with humanlike sophistication deserving humanlike ethical consideration, we will very likely create an AI with less-than-human sophistication, deserving some less-than-human ethical consideration. The authors suggest that eventually we will need to give AI the same protections as animals. While they admit that current AI programs are not conscious beings ("It might be a long time before we create an AI that can explain its feelings to us"), they somehow think that future AI programs might be conscious. AI programs are just that--programs. Nothing in such a program could make it conscious.

Short Circuit is a 1986 American science fiction comedy film directed by John Badham, and written by S. S. Wilson and Brent Maddock. The film centers around an experimental military robot named Number 5. Number 5 is struck by lightning and gains a more human like intelligence. He sets out to explore the world and its wonders in his new state.

Ever wondered how you went to YouTube to watch just a 5 minutes video but ended up there for 3 hours? Or saw an advertisement on some page of exactly the same thing that you have been planning to buy for last 15 days and ended up finally buying it! Isn't it great how your computer knows what you have been desiring? Well, it's not your computer but the bots, the algorithmic bots that have been watching you all the time. So the question comes, how these bots are made, and how software testing concepts come into play here.