That chilling theme was explored by two leading technologists at SXSW Interactive, a festival that has seen its share of humans rising up against the machines.

Unlike last year, no protests rallying to "Stop the Robots" were in evidence. Still,  the tech idea conference was rife with provocative sessions such as Can AI Systems Really Think? and Androids and Future Life.

In separate talks, the promise and pitfalls of both DNA sequencing and artificial intelligence were laid out by Riccardo Sabatini, a quantum physicist-turned-human-genome expert, and Dag Kittlaus, a telcom veteran-turned-entrepreneur. Kittlaus developed the virtual personal assistant Siri and sold it to a persistent Steve Jobs in 2010.

"It is important to prevent the bad side," Kittlaus, 49, said during his cheerfully titled talk, Will AI Augment or Destroy Humanity? "It's a good idea to keep an eye on this."