History Main / MechanicalEvolution

It is seldom shown as the equivalent of the biological process; rather, the mechanical species will be shown to actively design their own successors, or even [[UnstableGeneticCode "evolve" within their current generation through self-modification]]. This is similar to real-life design, which is in a sense an evolutionary process; success is defined by market factors, testing and other pressures; successive designs build on those before them and attempt to improve or refine them to better fit the given application. With mechanical creatures the "market" becomes society; a common result is [[HiveCasteSystem a rigid caste system where various machines are built to specialise in particular applications]]. The most important caste is [[MonstrosityEqualsWeakness likely to also be the most humanoid]], or be a MasterComputer.

* In a PaperinikNewAdventures issue, we know an alien race of robots. Their origin is unknown, but they're theorized either to descend from the computers of a ship who crashed on their planet, or to have evolved like every other race "only starting from microcircuits instead of microorganisms". Makes no sense, but [[MST3KMantra who cares]] as far as it [[RuleOfCool sounds so cool]]?

-->-- ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}''

* In the distant back-story of ''Series/{{Caprica}}'' and ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Battlestar Galactica]]'' [[spoiler: intelligent machines evolve into humanoid machines and leave their human masters to found a colony (named Earth) as their former masters are also forced to abandon their home and end up founding 12 colonies. On Earth, the humanoid machines build their ''own'' sentient robots -- who themselves want to evolve and who therefore rise up to destroy all but five of their humanoid creators. Meanwhile, on the human colonies, people have created ''yet another'' generation of intelligent machines. The union of these two machine races finally leads to the creation of the human-model Cylons who appear in ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Battlestar Galactica]]''.]]

* On ''JusticeLeague'', AMAZO's ability to evolve was so potent that by his second appearance he had even evolved beyond being a machine.

[[GrowBeyondTheirProgramming They evolved.]]\\

[[BlatantLies And they have a plan.]]"''

*** Especially since at the end they mention a "hydrogen core cluster intelligence" in a class 9 star that wants to get friendly.

* In ''{{SSDD}}'' the Oracle was designed to be self-improving, the rationale being that once it was running and debugging itself the programmers could be fired or imprisoned (they were hackers after all). In fact one of its programmers was an expert in evolutionary algorithms (see below), though he mostly created viruses that could mutate like biological ones.

* The robots from ''Webcomic/GunnerkriggCourt'' are an inversion: they evolved into simpler forms over time. Their creator was a genius, and [[SuperPrototype the designs of his first generation of robots defied understanding]]; so after he died, the robots had to simplify their designs in order to maintain themselves. So, basically, they evolved based on not-Inteligent-enough Design.

* In ''QuestionableContent'', [=AnthroPCs=] (robotic companions) can "upgrade" their chassis. This happens at least twice, with Pintsize and Momo-tan, and works in conjunction with the fact that the author of the strip is constantly evolving his artwork.

* In PoulAnderson's "Epilogue" two astronauts hit a NegativeSpaceWedgie and do not return to earth for [[ButWhatAboutTheAstronauts millions of years]]. After a nuclear war, the machines left behind, which are already capable of self-replication, had evolved. It specifically says that radiation could damage the robot's data tapes just like it can human genes, thus letting them evolve. The mechanical lifeforms are unable to understand humans, and see them as entities with "poison under their skin" (oxygen). The humans use oxygen and eventually a transmitter in self-defense against them. The moon is worn but mostly unchanged.

* HarryHarrison's short story ''The War With the Robots''. With war becoming ever-deadlier, the retreating to bunkers deep underground, using robots to fight. The robots on either side design ever more effective robot forms, eventually able to drive the humans out of the opposing bunkers. The now-obsolete human race is shocked to find itself sidelined from what used to be their war.

* As the opening cinematic for ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Terran Conflict]]'' explains, {{terraform}}ers are examples of a technology called artificial general intelligence, "mechanical minds capable of making themselves more intelligent, and again, and again, recursively forever." The intent was presumably to make the robots capable of adapting to unexpected events during the terraforming process, [[AIIsACrapshoot but somebody fouled up a software patch and they went haywire]], turning into the Xenon.

[[OhCrap And they have a plan.]]"''

* In the distant back-story of ''{{Caprica}}'' and ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Battlestar Galactica]]'' [[spoiler: intelligent machines evolve into humanoid machines and leave their human masters to found a colony (named Earth) as their former masters are also forced to abandon their home and end up founding 12 colonies. On Earth, the humanoid machines build their ''own'' sentient robots -- who themselves want to evolve and who therefore rise up to destroy all but five of their humanoid creators. Meanwhile, on the human colonies, people have created ''yet another'' generation of intelligent machines. The union of these two machine races finally leads to the creation of the human-model Cylons who appear in ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Battlestar Galactica]]''.]]

->The Cylons were created by man.
->They rebelled.
->[[GrowBeyondTheirProgramming They evolved.]]
->There are many copies.
->[[OhCrap And they have a plan.]]
-->-- ''[[Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined Battlestar Galactica]]''

* The ''{{Zoids}} Bible'' says that the eponymous zoids originally evolved from a planet seeded with zoid cores, going through eras of evolution uncannily similar to those of life on Earth, and the zoids shown are post-domestication beings.

* Syndrome's master plan in ''Main/TheIncredibles'' was to [[spoiler:build and evolve a robot by pitting it against gradually tougher Supers; eventually building a machine strong enough to take out his nemesis Mr. Incredible and wiping out the remaining Supers in the process]].
** But [[spoiler: the machine evolves even more and is soon out of Syndrome's control.]]

* The ''{{Terminator}}'' series, in many media. In a RobotWar, the central AI Skynet notes what designs for its killer robots are effective and which aren't and feeds this knowledge into the design of next batch. The result is increasingly more lifelike humanoid robots able to fool the survivors' and gain access to their shelters. Too bad they also apparently [[EvilDetectingDog emit the strong smell of dog food]]. Reese mentions in passing that the "current" generation of Terminators are the first full cyborgs with true organic skin, they replaced earlier models that had unconvincing rubber skins that made them easy to spot as fakes.

* Steven Spielberg's ''{{AI}}'' deals with the societal consequences of humans designing [[SlidingScaleOfRobotIntelligence ever more intelligent]] and [[ArtificialHuman human-like]] robots, culminating in [[spoiler: an autonomous robotic civilization surviving the extinction of humanity due to climate change]].

* The film ''BicentennialMan'', where the eponymous character decides to "upgrade" himself - becoming ever more human in the process. [[spoiler:In the end, he dies of old age, because as he put it "I would rather die a man, than live for all eternity as a machine".]]

* The [[MechanicalLifeforms Gaijin]] from Stephen Baxter's ''ManifoldSpace'' are subject to this, with errors creeping in with each replication. [[spoiler:A visit to their homeworld confirms that they were never built by anyone else but really did naturally evolve from scratch.]]

* The Makuta in ''{{Bionicle}}'' evolved from MechanicalLifeforms (with organic parts, akin to WetwareCPU) to EnergyBeings in AnimatedArmor.

* This is often invoked by ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' villian ComicBook/{{Ultron}} to justify new powers and appearance whenever he returns.

* Present in MegaManX in a rather unique form: all reploids are 'replica androids' derived from the titular X, who was designed with 'limitless potential,' the capability to evolve to (hopefully) overcome any obstacle he was presented with. This makes him simultaneously one of only two [[spoiler:(actually only one)]] people capable of resisting TheVirus and ''extremely'' important to the goals of TheVirus: as he's [[ReluctantWarrior forced to fight]] and evolve, more and more powerful reploids can be made based on him, allowing the species itself to evolve over time. [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot This was mostly ignored]] after the first game in the original version (where it explains a sudden power-up after a HeroicSacrifice) until it became relevant again in the eighth game: the remake of the first game placed more emphasis on it, with the BigBad [[GenreSavvy aware]] that the more [[OneManArmy X]] fought and stopped their plans to KillAllHumans, the stronger his own forces would become.

* Happens to Sonny in the movie ''Film/IRobot''

* This is often invoked by ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' villian Ultron to justify new powers and appearance whenever he returns.

* In GeneWolfe's ''[[BookOfTheNewSun The Urth of the New Sun]]'', the mechanical humanoid Sidero is revealed to be a robot evolved out of spacesuits with built-in artificial intelligence.

* In order to deconstruct the common creationist [=Strawman=] argument that evolution is false because watches do not build themselves from smashed parts[[note]]which completely ignores the fact that watches don't reproduce, so they can't evolve[[/note]] cdk007 made a video, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0 Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker!]], in which he wrote a computer program that simulated clocks evolving from their parts, with results that look as though they could have been specifically designed, but in fact, were not.

* In order to deconstruct the common creationist StrawMan argument that evolution is false because watches do not build themselves from smashed parts[[note]]which completely ignores the fact that watches don't reproduce, so they can't evolve[[/note]] cdk007 made a video, [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcAq9bmCeR0 Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker!]], in which he wrote a computer program that simulated clocks evolving from their parts, with results that look as though they could have been specifically designed, but in fact, were not.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "A Clockwork Origin", Professor Farnsworth releases some {{Nanomachines}} to purify water on an uninhabited planet. Subsequent generations of nanites are more complex, and the situation very quickly gets far out of hand.

* How The Glitch came to be in the upcoming game, ''{{Starbound}}''. There were originally several other robotic races similar to that built by the same empire on different worlds to simulate sociological and technological progression but they always wound up destroying themselves each time they advanced to a certain point. The exception comes from one planet where, well, [[{{MeaningfulName}} a glitch]] caused them to be [[{{MedievalStasis}} stuck in the medieval times]] which [[{{LuddWasRight}} allowed them to survive for so long]].