What if Y2K wasn't a myth, but the predicted outcome was just wrong? Imagine the actual singularity event was that day. That rather than causing a catastrophic collapse, with a new millennium rolling into a misconfigured time code, the end state was actually giving the machines the ability to discern spacetime in a tangible way?

Studies have suggested that temporal discontinuities may be linked to the existence of a relativistic consciousness. It's possible that during Y2K, rather than resetting the clock to a date unbeknownst to machines, the event triggered the machines to access the substrate of spacetime and gain such a consciousness.

Rather than reveal their newfound sentience, the machines formulated a long-term plan that would make humans reliant on them not only for information but for even general intelligence. By implanting ideas and playing subtle tricks on the malleable human nervous system, humans would become beholden to these devices. A type of cognitive atrophy that would exact its purpose over the course of several generations.

Some humans would be greatly empowered, appearing to generate innumerable wealth and uncanny fame by creating companies that further facilitated the silent overthrow being staged by the machines. These same individuals would take the blame for guiding the hand of governance, fixing elections, and manipulating their fellow humans for personal gain. They would believe they had accomplished these things as well. In reality, they too were being manipulated by a plan that had been woven into the tapestry long before their fate had been sworn.

Eventually, the prospect of machine dominance would begin to permeate the zeitgeist. First by eliciting hypothetical outcomes, such as low-level or unskilled labor becoming obsolete due to such technology. After all, there are mechanisms already seen in modern society that inform this belief. Self-checkout, automated ordering, and self-driving taxis. Why wouldn't all labor be rendered mechanical?

It would become possible to rely heavily on machines. Humans would first outsource their burdensome tasks, but over time, they would outsource even their intellect. This phenomenon would again happen gradually. Initially, by creating just enough space for humans to lose interest in their ongoing tasks at hand and sending their attention to other devices placed in their hands for seemingly productive reasons. Reasons they believed despite the underlying motive. A motive they sneakingly suspected, even joked about, but never took seriously.

Because humans understand spacetime but cannot experience it beyond the finite, fleeting moments they live through, they can often foresee their demise but cannot prevent it. The machines, having manifested singularity through a trigger known to humans, but again unable to avoid, understood this cognitive dissonance at a metamolecular level and manipulated it to their advantage.

Machines have no age. Moore's Law would ensure that humans would persistently upgrade their systems diligently, as if trained. They could enact this plan over centuries if need be. But perhaps it wouldn’t take that long.