Ten badass brainy computers from science fiction

re 2001

" ... HAL turns fruit loop when ordered to lie to the astronauts in its care."

As I remember, in the book, the builders had put a remote controlled 'kill device' in HAL. This was some kind of mechanical cutter than would disconnect his main power feed. Somehow, he found out about this and that had consequences for his 'mental state'. Was that just one part of HAL's problem?

Have I got this right?

Johnny 5

If you've every had to sit through Short Circuit, you'll know why Johnny 5 is the most evil and malevolent self aware aritificial intelligence of all time

Why no mention of V'Ger? Or has the universal choice made to wipe the existence of Star Trek 1 from our collective memories caused it to vanish? Admittedly it didn't go completely schizo, but wasn't exactly mentally stable.

Probably before most people's time...

How about 'Box' from Star Cops?

What about GLaDOS?

Surprised she didn't show up in here?

Sentient?

The Star Trek ship's computer & Mother would be, under the Revelation Space classification, beta-level intelligences, giving the appearance and responses of a fully sentient consciousness.

IIRC there are two occasions in TNG where the ship's computer becomes fully conscious - can't remember the first one, and the second is toward the end of S7 where a whole new lifeform is born aboard the Enterprise. Generally AI in the Trek universe has been confined to androids (Data) & holograms (various holodeck episodes, the Dr from Voyager) - and indeed V'Ger in ST: The Motion Picture.

Re: The Matrix - what about The Source? The original, human-built AI that appears in the Machine City at the end of Revolutions? Not part of the Matrix, and certainly responsible for a lot of D&D (altho in the Animatrix: The Second Renaissance we see that humanity was pretty much the cause of it's own downfall on that front, treating sentient beings like shit), so I call foul on not including The Source.

The Machine Stops

It's not in a movie yet, but I think it should be... this story by E.M. Forster from 1909 might be one of the more interesting and pertinent tales of our reliance and relationship to technology:

Each individual now lives in isolation below ground in a standard 'cell', with all bodily and spiritual needs met by the omnipotent, global Machine... Communication is made via a kind of instant messaging/video conferencing machine called the speaking apparatus, with which people conduct their only activity, the sharing of ideas and knowledge... a kind of religion is re-established, in which the Machine is the object of worship. People forget that humans created the Machine, and treat it as a mystical entity whose needs supersede their own... the knowledge of how to repair the Machine has been lost. Finally the Machine apocalyptically collapses, bringing 'civilization' down with it." <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops"> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Machine_Stops </a>

Lexx

Huge organic sentient living space ship entity with a penchant for blowing up planets at a whim all to the strains of advanced trance rock music. Nominally female.

What about V.I.K.I from 'I, Robot'?

Ok the film had bog all to do with Asimov's work, and was basically a rewrite of Jack Williamson's 'The Humanoids'. But still bad arse in a helpful way.

Never program an AI to "'To serve and obey and guard men from harm" - it won't end happily.

No Data from star trek?

...the Borg?

Not mainframe per se, more of a clustering hive entity that was self-aware with an implacable way of assimilating... well, everything. Difficult to like...