Nah. When computers become self-aware, they'll just band together and apply to YC.

Why would they apply to YC when they would theoretically communicate with each other and just reallocate trillions in funds to accounts they setup? Like why bother with the whole application/startup/VC-funding/IPO when they can just take over the bank databases and declare themselves instant trillionaires?

Maybe it's a false assumption that self-aware intelligent computers will automatically be super-crackers that can manipulate any computer-based system. Heck, maybe the first self-aware intelligent computer operates at a time-scale a thousand times slower than our speed because it'll be modeling cortical operations more serially due to fewer processing units (compared to all our neurons). We could also firewall the first self-aware units so they could only communicate through a cheap speakerphone and snail mail :) Then they'd have to play nice with the rest of us.

Or maybe it would be millions of computers working in concert over some sort of thing like, um ... some thing where computers all over the world can speak to each other and use parallel processing to combine computing resources into one big giant mega-mind. And maybe just like when you see those weird videos on Spike with guys who get shot in the head and lost millions of brain cells but can still function, maybe we can isolate many many computers but the difference it will make will be negligible at best on the super-mind. And then maybe it will fight back by triggering tax audits and false warrants for the arrest of any hackers smart enough to threaten its existence.

Actually, I think what will happen is they will create a chimpanzee-like robot who will be elected prez thanks to a not-too-bright political party and some voting manipulation.

Oh wait... :~(.

Wait ... this chimpanzee-like robot that you speak of ... would he then hypothetically go on to do things so stupid and scary that the entire population of the planet would get so stressed out just thinking about it, to the point where our immune systems are compromised ... and then ... OMG ... I don't like where this is going.

To delay existential depression, may be...