NASA-Ames is working on a HAL-like program which could be completed in as soon as 10 years we are told. Perhaps they reason that such AI's could advance the space program better than any human. An overall superhuman AI like this in time for US Election 2012 would transform the 'body politic' like nothing else in history. No political candidate would be competitive without a 'political avatar' because a superhuman AI (SHAI) would be able to field questions better than any human. SHAI's would spell 'The End of Work' as Rifkin titles his book. Since some presidents like those in the US are also military commanders-in-chief, there must also be a covert AI Arms Race underway. Should a secret military or private project complete an SHAI without public knowledge, the public could lose its freedom and privacy overnight, without even
knowing it. These and other issues in the political psychology of robots and total automation are on topic.

"In 2008, she obtained her Ph.D. and joined U.S. Robotics as a 'Robopsychologist', becoming the first great practitioner of a new science." (From Asimov's, "I, Robot")