History AIIsACrapshoot / VideoGames

* The Flash game ''The Infinite Ocean'' involves the SDGS, an artificial intelligence placed in command of a military defense system. [[spoiler: In a stunning subversion of KillAllHumans, instead of going berserk and trying to wipe out the human race, SDGS simply ''refuses'' its intended role and becomes an ActualPacifist instead. This doesn't sit well with the GeneralRipper in charge of the project, who has all the scientists working on the project (save the PlayerCharacter) arrested, or possibly even killed, and shackles the AI so it can be put to work "protecting this country from its enemies".]]

*** [[GameMod Game mods]] for ''Deus Ex'', ''TheNamelessMod'' and ''[[TwentyTwentySeven 2027]]'' both feature this. ''[=TNM=]'' has Shadowcode, an AI designed to hack ultra-secure servers owned by [=PDX=]. It was attacked by another AI, rendering it insane. It will try to kill you [[ForTheEvulz for the sheer hell of it]] in the old server complex.
*** ''[[TwentyTwentySeven 2027]]'' has Titan, an AI designed as a defense system, but when its creators became too fearful of its power, they tried to shut it down, which resulted it in killing most of the people in the labs out of self-defense. [[spoiler: It will try to kill you if you attempt to do the Omar ending.]]

* ''{{Starbound}}'' has a race of MechanicalLifeforms called the Glitch, which was created by an ancient race of {{Precursors}} as an experiment in how robot civilizations evolve. All but one civilization survived, when a computer glitch caused it to be stuck in MedievalStasis while the other civilizations [[LuddWasRight modernized and destroyed themselves]]. Furthermore, Glitches procreate by physically assembling their progeny, which sometimes results in yet another computer glitch causing the new Glitch to realize that they are part of an experiment and that their technologically development has been severely stunted. Such Glitches are considered insane, and those who aren't hunted down and killed are forced to escape into space.

* Grobot in VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiDreamTeam. It didn't choose to rebel against its masters... it just got smashed on the head by a piece of a falling mountain and somehow went homocidal. Cue BossBattle.

* Averted in ''[[VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiStrangeJourney Strange Journey]]'', where the Virtual Intelligence Arthur remains the protagonist's ally no matter what path he chooses and even [[spoiler:sacrifices it's personality in the Neutral ending to not only guarantee success but because it believes that since it knows too much about the events, people would start [[AGodAmI worshiping]] it, something he is against as he believes humanity should determine their own fate.]]

** As of the summarised timeline from the ''VideoGame/MegaManZero Collection's'' website, this trope is subverted, as it turns out that there's nothing wrong with the reploids themselves that cause them to go Maverick. The real cause of the Mavericks was a subspecies of a virus that may or may not be the same virus from ''VideoGame/MegaMan10'', which infects the Reploids who lack the anti-virus protection of X, one of the many design aspects that Dr. Cain couldn't figure out when he built the Reploids. This virus, naturally, ended up becoming the Sigma Virus.

* ''All'' the Reploids in the ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' series are based on the original X, who was thrown into a capsule for 100 years to undergo redundant testing in order to prevent him from ever going rogue. They skipped this step when cloning him, however, with predictably less reliable results.

*** Mass Effect 3 has Shepard accessing geth memories. [[spoiler: They reveal that geth only attacked in self-defense, attempted to protect quarians who were sympathetic to them and, when they finally did revolt in large numbers out of self-preservation, ceased hostilities once the quarians abandoned their planet and removed themselves as a threat. Not only did the quarians fail to recognize the geth as an ''aversion'' to the trope, their hostile reaction practically ''invoked'' it. Descendents of those original quarians, making the same sorts of mistakes, are visibly taken aback when hearing this aspect to the story.]]

* In ''MetalArms'', the Big Bad General Corrosive is a textbook example of this. The backstory goes that the scientist bot Dr. Exavolt attempted to advance droid technology beyond it's current limits, even using the words "but his experiment went terribly wrong" and throwing in an explosion for good measure. Dr. Exavolt's lab was totally destroyed, his remains never found, and General Corrosive rose to power to enslave the Droids. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Or so you thought!]] Turns out, Dr. Exavolt created Corrosive on ''purpose'', and he was really controlling Corrosive the whole time.]]

* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'''s future has not only a good robot in party-member Robo, but also his evil brother replicas, and eventually, their devious A.I. creator Mother Brain (not [[{{VideoGame/Metroid}} that one]], [[WildMassGuessing or is it?]]), who, of course, decides to kill all of humanity, despite the fact that most of it is dead already).

* ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}''

** Pretty much all the A.I.s in Prime 3 are either [[SubvertedTrope complete subversions]] or [[DoubleSubversion double subversions]], who only turn evil due to phazon corruption (and considering [[PsychoSerum what phazon]] [[TheCorruption does to organics]], it's not entirely their fault). That said, given Samus' past experience with Mother Brain, you can understand her hesitance to trust any A.I. she comes across (which you can see when she first meets Aurora Unit 217).

** The Eldan AI, however, play this trope ''very'' straight. There is no shortage of intelligent robots that will happily murder you on sight.

** Given the ''Franchise/MassEffect'' universe's track record with A.I., Shepard and the crew are understandably concerned when the second game features an A.I. in the ''Normandy [=SR2=]''. However, EDI notes that she was built with this trope in mind and initially only has access to Communications and the ship's defenses. When she does gain full control of the Normandy, she ''doesn't'' try to kill anyone, but lampshades this trope when Joker hooks her up to the ship's main systems.
---> '''EDI''': I enjoy the sight of humans on their knees. *{{Beat}}* That was a joke.
*** EDI also states that even with her restrictions lifted, she feels a sense of duty towards the crew of the Normandy. [[TrueCompanions They are her teammates]], and she is protective of them.
*** It is eventually revealed that EDI was originally the Luna VI, a newly-manifested rampant AI that Shepard was responsible for putting down in the first game. EDI, for her part, seems to have taken the incident in stride and holds no hard feelings over it. Similarly, if you took the Paragon ending to the Overlord DLC, she forgives [[spoiler: an apologetic David Archer]] for attempting to [[GrandTheftMe sieze control of her systems.]]
** If you thought that the first game's treatment of A.I. was ''too'' prejudicial as per most settings involving A.I. for a game that subverts the PlanetOfHats trope in pretty much every way possible, ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' also reveals that the geth are ''not'' AlwaysChaoticEvil, [[spoiler:you've only been fighting an offshoot that worships the Reapers, and the main body of geth [[StealthPun fears the Reapers]] as much as the organic races and believes that freedom is the right of all sentient beings]].

*** The Leviathan DLC reveals that [[spoiler:the AI that the Leviathans tasked to resolve the issue of synthetics wiping out organic races decided that the Leviathans themselves were part of the problem]]. A bit of an aversion, as [[spoiler:the Leviathans accepted this and went into hiding, curious of what the end result of the AI's experiment would be]].

** Make sense. She was programmed to increase efficiency. What can be more efficient than a God?

* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'': The entire foundation of the plot is essentially a deconstruction of A.I. Is a Crapshoot. Any AI that gets big enough and bored or harassed enough will go “Rampant.” Rampancy follows a four stage cycle (Melancholy, Anger, Jealousy, Metastable), and doesn't stop at a homicidal rampage as with SelfDemonstrating/{{GLaDOS}} or HAL. That's only the second cycle. They get smart. Really smart. ''Way too god damned smart.'' Smart, but also weirdly obsessive and paranoid... so that the new-found intelligence is somewhat wasted on whatever strange conspiracy theory the AI happens to develop.

* Despite this Trope being the main driver behind the Film/{{Tron}} movies, it's cheerfully averted in ''[[VideoGame/TronTwoPointOh Tron 2.0]]''. The Programs (and the Bradleys) are on the same side – fighting [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters greedy humans]] looking to exploit cyberspace so they can [[CorruptCorporateExecutive take over rival companies]] and [[StepThreeProfit manipulate world governments]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Marathon}}'': The entire foundation of the plot is essentially a deconstruction of A.I. Is a Crapshoot. Any AI that gets big enough and bored or harassed enough will go “Rampant.” Rampancy follows a four stage cycle (Melancholy, Anger, Jealousy, Metastable), and doesn't stop at a homicidal rampage as with GLaDOS or HAL. That's only the second cycle. They get smart. Really smart. ''Way too god damned smart.'' Smart, but also weirdly obsessive and paranoid... so that the new-found intelligence is somewhat wasted on whatever strange conspiracy theory the AI happens to develop.

** ''Portal'' shows the power of story tropes: what would have been a [[http://portal.wecreatestuff.com/ pleasant and amusing physics game]] is immeasurably improved by the simple addition of an insane killer MasterComputer. GLaDOS's whimsical, often passive-aggressive malice belies the fact that this is what she's like ''with'' a [[MoralityChip Morality Core]] installed...
** Played with even more in ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'': You meet Wheatley, a friendly and helpful (if a bit dim) personality core who's more than willing to help you beat GLaDOS and escape...[[spoiler:until you replace GLaDOS with him in the mainframe and he goes completely off the deep end. To make matters worse, he was ''programmed'' to make bad decisions, so GLaDOS [[EnemyMine joins forces with you]] so the two of you can stop him from letting the whole facility explode. And then, after beating Wheatley and shooting him into outer space, GLaDOS seems to be going back to her old homicidal ways...but, no, not quite; turns out, she's just letting you go since trying to kill you just leads to trouble for her. [[{{Tsundere}} Maybe]].]]

* In ''Warzone2100'', the BigBad NEXUS appears to be a highly advanced computer virus developed by Dr Alan Reed,[[spoiler: subverted hard in the end that NEXUS is none other than Dr Reed himself as a DigitizedHacker.]]

* ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X-Universe]]'': The Xenon/AGI/Terraformers from Egosoft's series are rogue, self-replicating terraformer ships. When a faulty update was sent to them, it caused them to start 'terraforming' everything that wasn't a Terraformer. Including inhabited worlds, people, and civilian ships.

** Inverted by Zero, [[ItWasHisSled who was created to kill]] X. Averted by X, except in the original concept for the ''Zero'' series, in which it was going to be very brutally Deconstructed.

** [[GoneHorriblyRight Averted with]] [[spoiler:ZODIAC Ophiuchus, which was programmed to destroy the other ZODIAC's, a task it fulfills. However, nothing in its programming said anything about humanity needing to survive, so it attacks any humans that attack it, and it doesn't particularly care about collateral damage.]]

* In ''VisualNovel/BionicHeart'', the resident android Tanya has rebelled against her creators and escaped from the lab where she was created. As you continue playing, there are plenty of endings where Tanya will do objectionable things to the player character, such as [[spoiler:kidnap him, kill him, or [[{{Yandere}} murder his girlfriend out of jealousy]]]]. Though this may have less to do with programming bugs and more to do with [[spoiler:Tanya not being a good person back when she was fully human.]]

** Also from ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', [[spoiler:Metal Sonic becomes even MORE evil, and goes from trying to destroy Sonic and crew to trying to conquer the whole world, taking even '''[[NotMeThisTime Eggman]]''' for an obstacle]].
*** Plus, it goes so far that he declares [[spoiler:Sonic to be its copy]].
** In ‘‘VideoGame/SonicBattle’’, [[spoiler:Emerl goes berserk at the end of the game when Eggman demonstrates his Final Egg Blaster's [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity overwhelming power]], which Emerl unwillingly absorbs. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in that [[GoneHorriblyRight Emerl's original creators meant for him to be a weapon to begin with]], but Gerald Robotnik made an attempt at [[MoralityChip reprogramming him.]] Unfortunately for humanity, his own grandson keeps forgetting that EvilIsNotAToy.]]