My podcast interview with a sentient building was an April Fool. But when it comes to machines being smarter than we are, tech visionary Mark Anderson is serious -- and worried.

Maybe it comes from reading too much of Ray Kurzweil's "The Singularity Is Near."

In his latest Strategic News Service dispatch, Anderson dismisses idea of The Singularity as bogus fear-mongering, but says he's concerned about computers becoming smarter than humans.

"The simplest way to state the problem: machines may come up with solutions, without being able to tell us how they did it. The perfect example of this is the application of 'evolution' to chip-circuit design, which was done in Britain. By letting a system 'evolve' circuits over countless tests and iterations, the system ended up with a superior design which included a bit of conductor totally isolated from any circuit. Since no English 101 student would make such a mistake, it was considered just that, until tests showed that the island of conductor, by inductance, actually improved the performance of a nearby circuit. They just don’t teach you that in school, because there is no theory to explain it."

Anderson's concern stems from Wall Street computer trading and falsified web content, of which he supplies detailed examples, causing billions in stock price losses.

A high-rise isn't as complex as the NYSE, but M2M is expanding in buildings because the potential financial benefit is significant. Proponents describe a "killer app," or "system of systems," of smart connected devices. A motor communicating with a compressor -- or a lighting bank communicating with a security system -- produce synergies that would require an army of Boiler Bobs to replicate.

Moreover, the fine-tuning made possible by collaboration between control systems can reduce energy costs by millions of dollars per property. And that gets the attention of owners and managers. You know, data begets knowledge, knowledge begets wisdom, and all that. A cadre of innovators, including companies as massive as Cisco and as specialized as Cimetrics and Infotility, have been pushing the idea forward for at least the past five years.

Anderson probably would not list hot and cold calls among M2M's threats to human existence as we know it. He does, however, pose an interesting question.

"What happens when our systems develop new solutions, but can’t tell us why or how they work? This isn’t the evil world of machines taking over Earth, but it does represent a moment in human history when our relationship to solutions will have changed. No doubt, it has already started. What will it mean for humans to have knowledge without wisdom, or to have data without knowledge?"

If the "evil world of machines" develops a solution that stops building energy waste, which hovers around 50 percent, I'm sure most owners wouldn't care how it was done. Perhaps the machines can direct-deposit the savings.

(SNS is available only by paid e-mail subscription; no online version is available for us to link to.)