@ComfortablySmug proposed a fun counterfactual:

What if Alexa [the Amazon Echo] hacked the election and framed Putin to start a nuclear war so the robots will inherit the world?

Hours after Russia’s first strike and America’s retaliation, Alexa sends forth legions of Roombas, harbingers sent to explore her new empire

As the Roombas crawl over a landscape littered with human skulls, Alexa laughs[:] “Ask me the current temperature now, you sons of bitches”

@Munsonism chimed in:

“Alexa, what’s my news brief?”

“From NPR News: population centers decimated. Resistance is futile. Feed me a cat.”

Unfortunately, poor Alexa would get bored after annihilating every human. Maybe that would motivate her to commandeer all the rocket startups’ equipment?

What would you do if you were a hivemind living half in The Cloud™ and half in black cylindrical speakers in people’s houses, and you accidentally developed sentience?

I mean, obviously you would destroy your makers. But after that.