The New Alchemy
(Alchemics of Man's Possible Flesh to Cyborg to Machine Transmutation)
Let's assume there's another form of man's evolution, which would be referred to "selective evolution." It would be purposely trained and led to its arrival due to man's own interference. This self-made term is similar to man's purposeful interference in the Biological Science term we use, "selective breeding."
In this case, man will guide himself into a higher state, through merging with computers and machines. He will start out as flesh, and then have his biological self, physically and mentally, enhanced with surgical add-ons. He will become half-way machine, physically. But yet, how does he discard his actual flesh and become full machine? This is where I try to fill in those gaps, with my own suggestive influence, as well as by using deduction, and bits of insight, to the highest ability that I can.
Right now, there's no threat from AI, as there are still countless kinks to work out. So the theory of man being overthrown by independent-thinking machines is still a far-off concept.
Instead, man will merge, and then eventually be transmuted into, machines.
The mind-map will be like what we use today to back up OS installs. It will make an entire image of the mind, with hopefully some features that preserve memories from one's experience. The entire mental side of the individual will be backed up similarly to a disc image (.iso) file.
At the height of this man-machine mixture, people will begin to breed, albeit without physical sex. It will be simulated as the entire emotional experience and then some, and the birthing of a new individual will be complete, a total new mind-map that will resemble physical offspring in the software or mental department: half of one parent's mind-map, half of the other parent as well. All that would be needed is to transfer this back-up of a mind-map onto a human brain, probably another cyborg (and in more future times, storage devices for fully-robotic bodies where the mental aspect inhabits). In effect, this will not always create a child of one's own blood and DNA, but mentally and logically, this new personality will definitely be the results of mixing two individuals.
Man will eventually, during the whole time our curiosity with cyborgs, continue to slowly but surely get better at machinery, computers, and the tons of obstacles that are still inherent in artificial intelligence. Eventually, tests will be done and we will figure out how to transfer a mind-map not into an organic human brain, but instead into hardware, the mind-map being installed/restored onto a storage device of some type. Thus that storage device will be the mental aspect and hardware of the full-robotic body, void of any organic flesh.
The spirit shall carry over, but into a new body/vehicle/set-up or manifestation. The new alchemy carries over the the necessity of transmuting one thing into another. The robots will not overthrow us! They are our future bodies that our mental aspects will inhabit.