#19 - robotic uprising

You work at a large, thriving robotics lab. Your current project involves miniature diagnositc devices, small robots that can be inserted into a patient's body to check for disease or monitor a wide range of bodily functions. Your research is going well and your hope is that thousands of lives will be positively impacted by these robots if their design and use can be successfully implemented.

One night you have a very strange, disturbing dream. You are given a vision of the future, decades from today, in which robots have become self-aware and have naturally enslaved the human race.

You awake with an oppressive sense of dread, one that does not lift even days later. For reasons unexplained, you are certain that this future is likely (even unavoidable) if events continue uninterrupted, and that your current work is a pivotal factor. In your dream, the tiny diagnostic robots were instrumental in the robotic uprising, for they were able to gather precise and exhaustive information on human biology and its weaknesses.

You could easily think of ways to sabotage your project to prevent this scenario from coming to pass, but you would at the same time be setting back medical science and any other advances that could come about as a result of your work. You are wary of bringing up the topic of robotic self-awareness to others, sensing that it could damage your credibility, but your fears persist. What action, if any, do you take?