Robotic Psychopath



""Definition: Love is making a shot to the knees of a target 300 kilometres away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope.""

- HK-47, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

A psychopath who is also a robot. Compare AI Is a Crapshoot where the robot isn't intended to be evil. Expect a lot of Crush! Kill! Destroy!. If they happen to be a good guy (or at least working for the good guy) they'll probably be a Sociopathic Hero.

See Second Law, My Ass for a milder form of this behavior.

Anime and Manga

 * Red Destiny in The Big O.
 * The Androids from Dragonball and Dragonball Z were intended by their creator(s) to be these, but almost all of them ended up turning good, the main exceptions being the ones in Future Trunks's timeline / dimension.
 * Gantz, anyone?
 * Machinedramon from Digimon Adventure. Despite his Creepy Monotone voice, he's a psychopathic monster who takes sadistic pleasure in destroying everything in his path.

Comic Books

 * Deaths Head
 * The Avengers' Arch-enemy Ultron.
 * Most incarnations of the Superman villain Brainiac.

Film

 * The Terminators. Or at least all the ones that haven't been reprogrammed.
 * In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, we find out that this isn't actually true. They are not programmed to be cruel, but simply to complete the mission as efficiently as possible. It's just that usually the most efficient path involves murder and torture.
 * ED-209. Being the brain child of a Corrupt Corporate Executive, it's unclear how much of it is a design flaw versus intentional programming.
 * The Showa (original) Mechagodzilla was a Humongous Mecha Killer Robot whose rampage through Japan was exactly what its designers wanted it to do. During the course of said rampage, it killed several thousand people, beat Anguirus to a pulp, and nearly killed Godzilla and King Ceasar. One Badass Tin Can Robot.

Literature

 * Clandish "Cybomec" Consto in Stationery Voyagers, partially subverted in that he was already a borderline-personality psychopath before he was mechanized.
 * The Culture designs their warships this way because it makes them more efficient killers. Drones in Special Circumstances share this trait. Even Drones who act like C3PO most of the time can be remorseless murderers. They tend to work for Special Circumstances and thus get more screentime then normal Minds and Drones, but are actually only a very small minority in the entire Culture. Special mention for the Mindfucker, a Ship Mind nicknamed for its hobby of mindraping tyrants and other evils.
 * Tik-Tok (not that one) by John Sladek. One day, he discovers that he isn't Three Laws Compliant after all, decides the whole concept is a collective delusion, and proceeds to indulge in various horrible crimes.
 * In the Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen, half the planet assumes that the titular robot will turn out like this because he is not only not Three Laws Compliant, he has no laws whatsoever. While he does commit a number of crimes, both willingly and unintentionally (leaving a crime scene without making a statement to the police, destruction of private property, arson, attempted blackmail, escaping police custody, theft), he is willing to accept responsibility for said actions at the appropriate time. In fact, . Caliban's logic for not killing is simple: The police know that he is a No-Law robot, so he will be considered a suspect if someone dies while he's around. If he kills, they have a good chance of figuring it out, at which point he will be hunted down and shot.
 * Antrax from The Voyage of the Jerle Shannara, who is doing exactly what it was programmed to do: protect the books of knowledge, no matter who it has to kill to do so.

Live Action TV

 * Brainiac in Smallville combines this trope with (alphabetically) Complete Monster, Evil Genius, Grand Theft Me, Misanthrope Supreme, and Omnicidal Maniac. He was wired this way from the start by General Zod, who sought to use him as his Dragon; after Zod's defeat, Brainiac goes rogue and creates his own agenda for The End of the World As We Know It. Metallo, in Season 9, is another example. Assembled by Major Zod (a younger clone of the General), the machines he's slaved to continually inject him with adrenaline, sending his aggression into overdrive; he's effectively Knight Templar Big Brother meets this trope, with a nice dose of Body Horror and Hollywood Cyborg on the side.. Although  it is due to being reprogrammed, not altruism on their own part.
 * Lore, Data's Evil Twin from Star Trek the Next Generation.

Video Games
"R-110: What's the difference between a human, and a lump of rotting meat? About one week!"
 * HK-47 from Knights of the Old Republic.
 * As are his HK-50 knockoffs from the sequel.
 * Possibly inspired by HK-47, PROXY, your Robot Buddy from The Force Unleashed, is programmed to try to kill you again and again.
 * E-123 Omega in Sonic the Hedgehog. The Bioware-made Chronicles lampshades the similarity to HK-47.
 * To a more sinister extent, Metal Sonic, who was driven mad by constant losses.
 * Alpha 2 Abomination the Second, son of the great protector of Lamar from The Nameless Mod.
 * Omega from Mega Man Zero personifies this trope almost as much as HK-47 does.
 * R-110 from Time Splitters: Future Perfect may not follow this trope from the start, but once he gets that virus at the start of the second level with him, he fully embraces the trope:

"Toaster: Buddy, if my heating element were just a little bigger, you'd be on fire right now. On fire!"
 * The toaster from Fallout New Vegas' Old World Blues expansion. Rendered somewhat ineffectual by being, well, a toaster.

Web Comics

 * Warmech in Eight Bit Theater.
 * The Red Robot from Diesel Sweeties.
 * Zeke in Ctrl Alt Del started life in this trope and has mellowed to a degree. Embla, as a newly constructed robot, hasn't had enough experience of humans (specifically, human video games) to do so.
 * Well more specifically he started as a blank slate (though probably influenced by HK-47, given his creator is a gamer), then after some encounters with humans became this trope, then started to mellow out... somewhat.
 * Castle Heterodyne in Girl Genius.
 * While not nearly as bad as some of the other examples on this page, you could make a very convincing case for Pintsize of Questionable Content to be here.
 * Ping from Megatokyo has a flaw in her programming which makes her become this in response to rejection. It proves useful against a giant monster.
 * In Freefall, the ship positively hates Sam.

Web Original

 * Mechakara

Western Animation

 * Roberto from Futurama.
 * Bender also fits, although its more Comedic Sociopathy compared to Roberto (who's genuinely unstable).
 * Don't forget Clamps and Robot Santa.
 * The Decepticons are effectively an entire race / army of these.
 * As are their successors the Predacons.
 * When T. O. Morrow created Red Volcano, he wanted a Dragon what wasn't concerned with being or becoming human. He got precisely what he wanted.
 * He even calls organic lifeforms "meatbags".