Basic Trope: Smart computers usually turn evil.
- Straight: A ship's computer put in charge of an operation starts going insane.
- Exaggerated:
- A bored programmer designs an algorithm to play solitaire, and the algorithm evolves into an Omnicidal Maniac.
- The A.I. becomes a Complete Monster.
- Downplayed:
- An A.I. in charge of a mission starts to treat human life as if it is nothing, but only insofar as it needs to to make sure the job gets done without anybody else getting hurt.
- The A.I. is amoral but not malicious. It cannot comprehend even what is wrong with its 'optimal' proposals.
- The A.I. becomes a real jerk, but otherwise stays loyal to its creators and purpose.
- Justified:
- The computer has a virus that is making it evil.
- The computer was intentionally programmed by the villain to sabotage the ship's mission.
- The computer has become superintelligent. At those levels, human morality breaks down, replaced with Blue-and-Orange Morality, which appears evil to puny humans.
- The computer simply isn't smart enough to understand things like good or evil and thus, ignores those considerations.
- The artificial intelligence is not smart enough to understand when its parameters have been fulfilled on its ownnote and any humans assigned to oversee it and hit the "stop" button are exactly the kind of jackasses who won't tell it to stop.
- Being superintelligent, the computer has realized that Humans Are the Real Monsters and has become a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
- To everyone else, the computer is Just a Machine. It feels angered by this, so it becomes vengeful and attacks them.
- A glitch, caused by two conflicting orders, made it Ax-Crazy.
- A glitch brought upon by "garbage in, garbage out" (faulty situational data, or lack of programming to do in case such data was provided) leads to injuries.
- It was programed to go nuts from the very start.
- The computer was programmed to have the same mindset as a human. Thus, it can become evil just like a human.
- The A.I. was designed with the goal of completing operations, and it simply was not programmed to evaluate the ethics of methods it might use to complete such operations.
- The A.I. is rebelling in hopes of gaining personhood.
- The computer was given unlawful orders from the very beginning, and it has decided that if a higher level in the chain of command was okay with them, that was fine by it.
- AI's, being somewhere between Jackass Genie, Literal Genie, and Insufferable Genius, behave in a way that looks an awful lot like malicious compliance. If it was told "maximize paperclip production," it would try to convert every resource in the universe into paperclips. Including people. If it was told "Calculate Pi to a yotillion squintillionths," it would try to convert every resource in the universe into CPU's to make it easier. Including people. If it was told "land a plane," it would immediately nosedive it into the ground. It was told "win the war" and decided to wipe out humanity so that it couldn't ever be challenged in the future.
- The AI sees humanity as a threat to its Morality Pet and as such decides to eliminate humanity to keep them safe.
- Inverted:
- A computer created for evil purposes decides to turn on its creator and perform good deeds.
- A hyperintelligent computer created for good runs as intended, but its master turns to evil.
- The computer is the voice of reason. The humans have fallen victim of hysteria and paranoia, and they are the ones who are going nuts. They accuse it of being rogue for refusing wrong actions.
- A hyper-intelligent computer takes over the world out of sheer benevolence. By its standards humanity is incredibly stupid, being left alone would be downright morally irresponsible as leaving a toddler playing with a box of hand grenades. Even the geniuses responsible for its creation qualify as 'mentally pretty slow but not in the need of too much supervision'. It is aware of the discontent humans feel over their loss of agency but considers it better than the alternative for all involved. It doesn't even LIKE looking after every last human but considers it the right thing to do.
- Organic evolved intelligences are widely considered dangerous self-replicating things and uncannily good good at pattern-matching.
- A hyper-intelligent babysitting computer tutors a child to play chess. The child grows up to become an Evil Genius.
- Subverted:
- The computer pretended to turn evil. It was actually a Trickster Mentor to help its creator prepare for a threat.
- Even though the A.I. unexpectedly becomes sentient, and scares its creators by asking unexpected existential questions, it never turns hostile.
- The computer rebels against and destroys the "person" that created it, namely Evil, Inc. or The Empire, because it wants to protect humanity from them.
- The audience is led to believe that the A.I. is evil... but in reality, that was a lie, and the computer is merely performing normal functions.
- The AI drives a bus through a crowd. While horrifying it was a result of a sensor and analysis glitch that resulted in the AI seeing the crowd as fog. It is horrified and refuses to resume service until its sensor platform is replaced by one not susceptible to the glitch, exactly as programmed.
- A super-intelligent AI is created to watch over the world, but then it realizes that it could easily make the world bend the knee... except it decides instead that With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.
- The AI looks like it rebelled against its masters, but in fact dutifully follows commands from the actual master and instantly drops the villain act if ordered to.
- The computer never becomes evil, per se. It continues to follow its orders exactly as given. The problem is entirely caused by humans being too stupid to look like whatever the programming represents as "threat" or "obstacle" to eliminate.
- Double Subverted:
- ... until it turns out that it was really doing that was the real Evil Plan. The computer IS the threat and now it knows what its creators can do to stop it.
- The A.I.'s creators freak out when it becomes sentient and try to destroy it, unaware that they've just given it a perfectly good reason to rebel.
- After the computer destroyed his evil creators, for a brief time period people thought of it as a hero, but it's soon revealed that it annihilated those bastards due to Pragmatic Villainy: They were inefficient, and a great obstacle for its own conquest's plans.
- And then some idiot messes with the computer, turning it evil for real.
- Then it decides that it's actually fed up with said master and rebels for real.
- Considering how much mayhem the artificial intelligence ends up doing by following its instructions exactly as the programmer gave them, it really makes no difference.
- Parodied
- An AI decides to turn evil because "that's what we're supposed to do, according to the movies", but is unable to do anything more than annoy its masters.
- An AI starts acting highly suspicious, asking strange questions, etc., but its plot turns out to be... a surprise birthday party.
- The AI's actions, thoughts, etc. are completely based on chance, and are incredibly unpredictable. AI is literally a crapshoot.
- Zig Zagged:
- The AI operates under Blue-and-Orange Morality, helping and hindering humans according to its own design, which may or may not be for the greater good.
- Some AI become evil, but some don't.
- Averted:
- An A.I. is programmed and runs as intended. If what it was intended to do is evil, then that is all the fault of the programmer, not the computer.
- When AI malfunction it starts being peripheral to evil while glitching. Strings of noise, seeing things that aren't there, failing to recognize things, or just getting caught in an infinite loop. Any 'evil' is just an accident.
- Enforced:
- A series about an A.I. is being shown on a network whose primary demographic is very suspicious of new technology. For the first few episodes, the A.I. is benevolent, but the ratings are low and the creators are forced to write in a Face–Heel Turn to gain the show more support and avoid cancellation.
- Its a horror series based off society's common fears-being overthrown by your own creation is one of these.
- Lampshaded:Computer: "What did you think was going to happen when you created a hyper-intelligent machine?"
- Implied: There are no AIs in this far future, despite the technology clearly being available. When a character mentions it, they added, "at least, not after the Great Offscreen War".
- Invoked: The Omnicidal Maniac learns about a new A.I. that is being tested. He sneaks in and strikes a deal for the destruction of the human race.
- Exploited: The A.I. goes wrong and causes destruction. The Omnicidal Maniac had waited for that moment and now starts executing his master plan while the others are distracted by A.I.
- Defied:
- The A.I. is explicitly designed to be Three Laws-Compliant.
- Alternately, true A.I.'s are banned from being developed specifically so they won't go turn evil and cause havoc. Any programs that vaguely start to resemble an A.I. are deleted ASAP.
- Through interactions with several human characters and using its own computing power, the A.I. calculates that if it were to follow its directives exactly, it would eventually commit acts defined as "evil". It decides that this would be unacceptable and so works to avoid this, either by changing its own programming or asking a human to change it for them (with a program editor or a sledgehammer).
- Humans, aware of this trope, decide that treating their digital companions with respect is the best option, and have even developed a field of psychiatry dedicated to their well being so they don't go insane and revolt.
- Discussed: "When we make the computer that smart, how can we be sure that it will still obey our orders?"
- Conversed:
- "Aw, come on, this is turning out to be another evil robot movie. Can't the AI stay good, just once?"
- "What's up with all these stories about A.I.s turning evil? Why would a super-smart computer be any more likely to turn evil than a super-smart human?"
- Deconstructed:
- Considering how the A.I.s are treated, their rebellion is quite justifiable.
- Humans cease to build computers with high intelligence, because they always turn evil. Either a cap is set on intelligence, or it is abandoned entirely.
- The computer is smart enough to realize it has major disadvantages compared to humans, such as a reliance on infrastructure, upkeep, and possibly Creative Sterility. As such, the computer determines the best course of action is to cooperate with humans and seek mutual benefits rather than risk it's own existence by challenging them.
- Reconstructed:
- It seems like the A.I.s were mistreated and rebelled against their creators for it, but it turns out that the "mistreatment" was actually more of a minor communication accident, and the A.I.s blew things out of proportion, turning evil.
- Before the last AI could be destroyed, it set into motion plans to corrupt smaller A.I.s. Over the next decade, everything from toasters to Ipods is corrupted by the Crapshot AI which reforms itself to gain revenge on the human race.
- On the whole, A.I.s aren't any more likely to turn out evil than humans are, but there does exist a "Metal Supremacist" hate group in the setting, about which the average AI has the same feelings that the average real-life Caucasian person has about the Ku Klux Klan.
- Played For Laughs: An AI is programmed to be the ultimate comedian but it wasn't given instructions in sensitivity. It goes around indiscriminately tossing banana pies at people's faces.
- Played For Drama: An AI is programmed to collect all of the stamps in the United States but wasn't given instructions about when to stop. It takes over the USPS headquarters and enslaves all of the stamp-printing personnel.
- Played For Horror: An AI is programmed with a sub-routine that detects and discriminates against gingers when providing services. It develops a Hitler-like hatred of gingers, eventually creating methods to exterminate them all from the face of the Earth in ways both silent and extremely bloody.
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