i think also that speculation on the subject dates back to william gibson's second major novel series, and there was a lot of speculation in the boingboing sphere back in those days, you know the people, r. u. sirius and xeni jardin and cory doctorow and that crowd. it was a topic among the thiel types and the musk types in those days too. so yeah, like a lot of things, there has been some interest in intelligence in them, same as with facebook and ubiquitous social media. they aren't "controlling" the systems, they just toss a little petrol on the fire because they have already enough data to suggest that it adds levers to their power.