A.I. Is a Crapshoot/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


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.
  • Downplayed: A ship's computer Takes A Level in Jerkass.
  • 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.
    • Being superintelligent, the computer has realised 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.
  • Inverted: A computer created for evil purposes decides to turn on its creator and perform good deeds.
  • Subverted:
    • The computer pretended to turn evil as a Batman Gambit to deal with a threat.
    • Even though the A.I. unexpectedly becomes sentient, it never turns hostile.
  • Double Subverted: ... until it turns out that it was really doing that as part of its Xanatos Gambit.
  • Parodied / Played for laughs: An A.I. 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.
  • 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.
  • 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 Is blew things out of proportion, turning evil.
    • Before the last A.I. could be destroyed, it set into motion plans to corrupt smaller A Is. 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.
  • Zig Zagged: The A.I. 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.
  • Averted: An A.I. is programmed and runs as intended.
  • 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.
  • Lampshaded:

Computer: "What did you think was going to happen when you created a hyper-intelligent machine?"

  • 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: A.I. goes wrong and causes destruction. 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.
  • 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?"
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