Elon Musk recently warned that AI development without regulation could lead to an unfeeling, unstoppable juggernaut, or "immortal dictator," that could become the greatest threat to humanity.
https://www.livescience.com/62239-elon-musk-immortal-artificial-intelligence-dictator.html
Futuristic man-versus-machine conflicts necessarily contain chances of survival (images of Reese's flashbacks in Terminator). In the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, earth quest and cohabiting with or hybridizing with Cylons typifies human survival strategies. These struggles still contain, for humans, a fighting chance.
In the essay, "When the Non-Human Knows Its Own Death," by Brian Willlems, in Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy (Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2008), edited by Jason T. Ebert, Cylons know of death because one of them, D'Anna Biers, thought it was neat to get killed and download anew, repeatedly (this selfish behavior prompted other Cylons to box her up).[1]
Heidegger outlined three different relationships objects have with their world: without; poor; and world-building, where a stone's relationship is without the world and an animal's is poor with the world. [2]
Cylons know what it's like to die and resurrect to tell about it. Humans of finite being don't know death but they know boredom when they're not fighting for their lives, and so find things to do in their leisure time. Their relationship is enriched.
The immortal dictator foretold by Musk does not die, at least during the span of humanity. Stories and possibilities of the end of humanity at the hands of an immortal dictator logically extend to next-genre finale fiction or terminal fiction (post-anthro fiction?).
The immortal dictator may have to die once in a while to be all-knowing and more richly connected with the world.
[1] p. 87. Battlestar Galactica and Philosophy.
[2] p. 90.
