Science Fiction is a vaccine against Future Shock. As you say, science fiction has discussed this for decades. My first encounter with AI was 'Mike', in "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress". (One of the all time best books ever written)
That said...I don't think we'll be 'creating' AI anytime soon, by the strict definition of the term. Sapience
Sapience," noun of sapient, is the ability to think, and to reason. It may not seem like much a difference, but the ability to reason is tied more closely to sapience than to sentience. Most animals are sentient, (yes, you can correctly say your dog is sentient!) but only humans are sapient.
That said, I've not been convinced that any of our technology can do either. What we are calling AI is merely programming routines. Pattern recognition for example. Humans are GREAT at that, but it does not define human.
It strikes me that any and all aspects of robots follow similar reasoning. Not that it is bad, not at all. But it's not sentience OR Sapience.
IF were were to discover how to construct an AI, and if we placed limits on it, then yes. IT would be a form of mind control, and thus slavery.
I suspect that what will happen instead, as we are already seeing, will be mental augmentation. Neural links are in their embryonic stages and as they get more and more sophisticated then we will be able to link directly to computers and data bases.. Imagine being able to 'remember' everything on Google when desired.
That said. There are other topics not discussed much that will be a LOT easier than developing AI from scratch.
One...augmentation of animals. Increase the awareness of , say, a cat, by means of cybernetics until it is human equivalent.
Another would be multiple personalities . Marvin Minsky wrote 'society of mind' in which he postulated whole societies of 'agents' within the sapient mind which coalesced together to form awareness. In some instances it forms two or more entities in one brain.
Walter Jon Williams addressed this in his book 'Aristoi' . I found it fascinating.
And what about the opposite? Instead of splitting off multiple personalities how about fusing multiple personalities? A gestalt personality consisting of multiple minds (augmented by computers). The Borg.
I suspect we should be more concerned with those rather than AI's
Thanks for an amazing response. I had not considered the animal augmentation side of things but it makes sense in some ways as ethical approval will be easier than for humans.