Could this be the beginning of life as we don't know it? Dr Kevin Warwick, professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, thinks it could.
He told an audience at the Cork Institute of Technology last night his university department had already created robots with the brain-power of a wasp and it might not take too much longer before a robot with more intelligence than a human - and better practical skills - could be created.
Prof Warwick is a futurist and scientist. He put a microchip in his arm just to see how things would work out. The possibilities excited him.
Linked to a computer, the chip sent its own messages, turning on lights, opening doors, etc. With his arm chip, he didn't have to turn a handle - all he had to do was approach the door and it opened.
He felt he was becoming friendly with the computer - an affinity was developing. Man and computer - was this the way things would go?
The professor told his audience his argument was that human beings may in the next number of decades - and not too many of them - be at the mercy of the new cyber life forms.
We may all even be treated by them in the same way as humans treat animals today. "I propose that there is an urgent need for an anti-proliferation treaty to prevent these and other even more horrifying scenarios. The march of the machine is ongoing and something has to be done to prevent disaster," he said.
The author of the book In the Mind of the Machine, the professor believes the rapid development of cybernetics could have dire consequences for humanity. If you can build a robot with the brain-power of a wasp, anything is possible, he said.
Recently, his personal computer, once he entered his office, told him how many email messages he had received; that he had run a bath; and warned him to chill his wine. That's what you get when you put a microchip in your arm.
The professor's family didn't warm to the chip as he did. He said his wife found it somewhat strange and didn't want to go near his arm for a couple of days. His 16-year-old daughter thought he had gone a little "crazy".
When he arrived at Cork Airport last night, the professor said he believed that within 10 years human science would have produced the capability to make intelligent robots and that within a further decade the robots would have assumed their own intelligence.