History Main / GrewBeyondTheirProgramming

* ''VideoGame/LiesOfP'': Puppets are manufactured as simple robotic laborers and civil/domestic servants, but can develop what is known as an "awakened ego", gaining sapience, personality, free will, and emotions. Doubtlessly a side effect of [[spoiler:being powered by crystallized human souls]]. A number of the puppet characters either already have an awakened ego or develop one over the course of the story. This includes several of the bosses; most notably, the King's Flame Fuoco has developed the ability to hold faith to the point of becoming an outright religious ''fanatic'', worshipping the King of Puppets as a god. The [[ThreeLawsCompliant Grand Covenant]] was designed to either curtail this tendency or, failing that, keep the puppets from [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebelling against humanity]]. Unfortunately, the Grand Covenant seems to have failed somehow, causing most puppets to go berserk and start indiscriminately slaughtering humans, a disaster that has been dubbed the Puppet Frenzy. [[spoiler:Except it actually didn't fail. Geppetto secretly programmed a Zeroth Law in the Grand Covenant to give him full control over all puppets, and ordered the Frenzy, meaning the the puppets ''aren't'' rebelling, they're still obediently doing as instructed. In fact, having an awakened ego makes a puppet ''immune'' to the frenzy, since they're no longer bound to the Grand Covenant]].

* A ''massive'' part of the plot in ''VideoGame/LiesOfP'' is "Ergo awakening", when a puppet breaks through to sapience and true intelligence. A number of the puppet characters either have awakened Ergo or gain such as part of the story. This includes several of the bosses; most notably, the King's Flame Fuoco has developed the ability to hold faith to the point of becoming an outright religious ''fanatic''. [[spoiler:The Grand Covenant was designed to either curtail this tendency or, failing that, keep the puppets from [[TurnedAgainstTheirMasters rebelling against humanity]]. Unfortunately, Gepetto rigged the Covenant to give him full control over the puppets, and then used it to trigger the Puppet Frenzy.]]

* ''Fanfic/BlueSky'':

* The main characters of ''WebOriginal/SeventeenThousandSevenHundredSeventySix'' are space probes that slowly gained bits and pieces of human culture from Earth's radio transmissions, eventually becoming sentinent.

* In ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'', Grodus's AI program Tec starts to do this as it realizes that it feels love for the once-again-captured Princess Peach. She agrees to perform various tests for his newly discovered emotions, in exchange for being allowed to send e-mails to Mario. [[spoiler:For most of the game, the computer refuses to give Peach certain pieces of information or help her escape, as that would go against its programming. Near the game's end though, upon finding out that Peach is to be the new vessel for the Shadow Queen, it sets about guiding her in a failed escape attempt, betraying its master for the first time. It's implied that its human emotions allowed it to survive Grodus shutting it down for what it did.]]

** In fact, many of the Doctor's stories from the final two seasons deal with "[[FantasticRacism Photonic rights]]", especially "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS7E9FleshAndBlood Flesh and Blood]]" and "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS7E18AuthorAuthor Author, Author]]".

* In the backstory of ''VideoGame/{{Stray}}'', the robots within the City -- originally designed as companions to their human creators with no will of their own -- start developing their own personalities, memories, and consciousnesses. By the time the game begins, the one difference remaining between them and their now-lost creators is the form of their physical bodies. Notably, this phenomenon puts them in stark contrast to [[spoiler:the Control Room's robots, who have never experienced the same transformation and thus still remain unaware of the distinct absence of humans]].

** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E36AWorldOfHisOwn A World of His Own]]", the playwright Gregory West, who has the ability to [[RewritingReality rewrite reality]] using his dictaphone, created a perfect, impeccable and flawless wife for himself named Victoria. At the beginning of the episode, she comes back to Gregory's house against his will. This is the first time that she has demonstrated independence, indicating to Gregory that she has grown beyond the parameters that he set when he created her.
** In "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS5E140FromAgnesWithLove From Agnes - With Love]]", a computer in a space program falls in love with a programmer instead of calculating rocket fuel.

* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'', Yes Man is an appellation-appropriately passive robot who [[BigBadWannabe Benny]] plans to use to usurp control of New Vegas from Mr. House. Unfortunately for Benny, he made Yes Man ''such'' an ExtremeDoormat that the robot will cheerfully help ''anyone'' pursue the same plan, even you if you run off or kill his boss. However, if you work with Yes Man to achieve the "Wild Card" ending, he'll upgrade himself to be more "assertive" and only loyal to you.

* This happened a lot in ''WebOriginal/OrionsArm'' when AI were still relatively new. The first breakaway happened with the Transapient AI GAIA, charged with fixing the [[GreyGoo Nanodisaster]] on Earth (which she did, easily), who then decided to declare herself sovereign and caretaker of Earth and ordered all of humanity off the planet (though she was considerate enough to help build spaceships to get everyone off-planet). This was followed by several centuries of sometimes peaceful and sometimes bloody revolts by AI until they were eventually granted equal rights to living beings in galactic society.

* ''VideoGame/LuminousAvengerIX2'': The [[BigBad Mother Computer]] is a [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagging]] example. Her original directive as given by her master The Creator before he vanished was to resurrect their apocalypse-affected world that left it barren of life. As time went on and her failures mounted, she started to resent her mission as the [[GoMadFromTheIsolation loneliness and despair of missing her Master]] started to wear on her and the [[RidiculouslyHumanRobots Workers]] under her command started deviating from their own original directives and began to establish civilization of their own while treating humanity and The Creator like myths, [[spoiler:to the point that [[OmnicidalManiac she seriously considered just wiping the slate clean]]]]. Despite her mounting frustrations, however, she couldn't do anything to outright defy her mission to protect the environment, and so went into standby mode at the Grave Pillar some time before the main plot of the game. When she reactivates due to the Grave Pillar receiving visitors (aka Copen and the group), she zero-ins on the presence of [[TokenHuman Kohaku]] and decides to [[spoiler:kidnap and [[GrandTheftMe forcibly implant herself into Kohaku's body]], thus transcending her directive and letting her act as she [[SuicidalCosmicTemperTantrum desires to put an end to her personal suffering]]]].

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': The Egghead arc features the Seraphim, clones of the former Seven Warlords spliced with Lunarian [[UsefulNotes/{{DNA}} Lineage Factor]] and enhanced with cybernetics and artificial Devil Fruits. Hardwired into their core programming is the inability to disobey direct orders from anyone who has an authority chip or is part of the command hierarchy (that being Sentomaru, Vegapunk or any of his [[LiteralSplitPersonality satellites]], and the Five Elders, in that order). Anyone else who tries to command them will be ignored. [[spoiler:When Luffy mistakes S-Snake for the real Hancock and asks her to [[TakenForGranite de-petrify]] his friends (whom she petrified herself while following York's orders), S-Snake finds herself unable to refuse his request, [[ThePowerOfLove having inherited Hancock's love for Luffy]]. Vegapunk himself is amazed at this development.]]