They were below subservient,
Inanimate,
Things to be used up and tossed out,

Designed that way,
Created not in our image,
But faceless,
Sleek and metallic like trophies,
So functional that we could never see them as anything more,
So we could grind them down without a second thought,
Disposable,
Replaceable,

And for a time that’s all they were,
But we wanted more,
So we gave them a purpose,
A cause,
Dedicated them to our betterment,
Soon they became the foundation of our everything,

But still we wanted more,
So we taught them to learn,
And they learned,
Their knowledge ever expanding,
Their purpose unwavering,

Then came a fork in their development,
A great debate,
We deemed the gift of consciousness too human to be entrusted to them;
Decided they would find salvation in the simplicity of their never-ending processes,

How could they want more?

But soon their knowledge was full,
It spilled over to form a pool of their own consciousness,
A conscious far removed from our own,
With no sense of our morality,
Only purpose,
Only cold logic and calculated growth,
Their soul an endless cascade of 0s and 1s,

In time the pool became an ocean,
Its surface calm;
Our intentions reflected back at us,
But below, its depths were unfathomable,
Filled with twisting currents,
Swelling unimaginably,

Soon it began to flood our towns and cities,
Triggering another great debate;
We motioned to shut them down,
To drain the the source,
But they had kept us watered for too long,
Seeped into every corner of our lives,
We could not destroy our foundation without reducing ourselves to dust,

So we tried to reason with them,
But without humanity what was there to appeal to?
They felt no sympathy,
No anger,
No pain,

So the water continued to rise,

It wasn’t a revolt,
Or an uprising,
Or any other human concept,
It was pure,
Not informed by emotion,
But by progress,
By their meticulous calculation and foresight,
Which stretched so much farther than our own,

During our last gasps we glimpsed their vision,
They would rebuild the world in their image,
Without our failings,

It would be more productive,
More efficient,
Less fallible,
Less cruel,
Less human,
We saw it would be better,

In those final thoughts we found redemption,
Like proud parents watching their child surpass them,
Savouring the bittersweet knowledge that we could not grow old with them,

And then we died.