SUPER COMPUTERS & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - can personal freedom survive?

Some see the rise of artificial intelligence and the amazing analytical capabilities of super computers as a great threat to the future freedom of mankind; others see these only as useful tools for a future society of mechanized labor and enhanced freedom/leisure for mankind.

What are the pitfalls and the benefits of living in the age of quantum computers, hyper technology and beyond? Can machines become the masters of mankind as depicted in sci-fi movies like Colossus or are we imaging a threat that doesn’t exist? Are there evil geniuses capable of creating a machine society that only they and a few others can design and control while enslaving society? Has technology advanced so rapidly that we have outpaced our ability to provide the controls necessary to keep human intelligence necessarily superior to artificial intelligence? What if any safeguards are in place to guarantee human supremacy in a world of quantum computers and artificial intelligence? How do things like spirituality, morals and the human soul figure into this debate?