Poll: Best Evil A.I.

[General BrEeZy]

oh yeah, Sovereign, duh.
but yeah. GLaDOS takes the cake.
...
wait. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GIMME THE CAKE! lol

 

[blindthrall]

SkyNet doesn't make the poll? What the hell!

SkyNet is my answer. SkyNet was an AI that knew how to get shit done.

I guess you never saw Salvation. That Skynet most definitely had no idea how to get shit done. It had Kyle Reese in custody! One bullet to the brainstem, and you just won! He's John Connor's dad!

For my money it's SHODAN, although I can understand why GlaDOS is winning. Back in my day, any insane AI worth its sodium declared itself a god!

Would have liked to see an option for Crow T Robot though.

It had no idea that Reese was Connors father, only that he was important to Connor.

And, honestly... Terminator got de-railed after T2.

Also, you have to take into account that there are, potentially, thousands of different SkyNets. We have no idea if SkyNet only tried to kill Connor 3 times, or if the Connor portrayed in the movies was only attacked 3 times. Skynet and Connor could have been going at this for combined centuries, and it might be possible that Connor was not the first, nor the last messiah. SkyNet has already proved that it is, in a manner of speaking, Destiny: it will happen, one way or another. Its possible that SkyNet has succeeded in the 'past' in killing messiahs, but each and every time a new one steps up, starting the time war again.

SkyNet '4' (T4) may have been pathetic (Which would explain how the US military survived so long, as it was previously told that it failed almost immediately), but SkyNet 1 and SkyNet 2 were most definably bad ass.

Oh wow, sorry. I didn't think it needed spoilers, one of those things everybody knew. Yeah, Skynet could have ended it the moment they recognized Reese. If Connor's replaceable, then why would Skynet devote so many resources to killing him for so long? Any explanation results in either the story losing all meaning or Skynet looking more and more incompetent. The destiny theme in Terminator has to do with the time travel aspects, which I found more interesting than an AI with no real motive (maybe scarier that way, but I think it's lazy). Basically major events (like Judgment Day, something everyone is aware of) have to happen, but the details can be changed by causal meddling. There's a book called Man in the High Castle, in which the Nazis have won WWII. The story's hero is a Japanese man who cannot stop Japan getting nuked on the exact same day as in our reality. Major events (or ones dealing with nuclear explosions? STALKER!) have to happen, but the events leading up to them are wildly mutable.

AM is the original Skynet, btw. Harlan Ellison successfully sued Cameron for plagiarizing the antagonist to I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, saying that Terminator was merely a pastiche of that and the Twilight Zone episode Demon With a Glass Hand. The first Terminator is still one of the best SF films ever.

 

[blindthrall]

As I understand it is implied that

Spoiler: ME2 ending spoilers

each Reaper is born out of the race it will reap. Biomass is collected by liquidating species members and the reaper is somehow born

of course that doesn't explain where the original lot came from but basically Reapers make more of themselves

EDIT-wow server borked on me
OT: I voted Glados as CABAL wasn't up there; while "her" evil is debatable I loved the mind games

i know that. but if something is built instead of being hatched or birthed or growing out of something isn't it artificial?

With the scale of the Reapers, that's like saying individual cells built you. Building materials don't matter, you can easily make a machine from carbon, which is all we are. We won't know if they're true AIs until we know their origin, which I don't think will ever happen. The timescale is too large, and they've been wiping out all evidence of themselves for thousands of years.

 

[brodie21]

As I understand it is implied that

Spoiler: ME2 ending spoilers

each Reaper is born out of the race it will reap. Biomass is collected by liquidating species members and the reaper is somehow born

of course that doesn't explain where the original lot came from but basically Reapers make more of themselves

EDIT-wow server borked on me
OT: I voted Glados as CABAL wasn't up there; while "her" evil is debatable I loved the mind games

i know that. but if something is built instead of being hatched or birthed or growing out of something isn't it artificial?

With the scale of the Reapers, that's like saying individual cells built you. Building materials don't matter, you can easily make a machine from carbon, which is all we are. We won't know if they're true AIs until we know their origin, which I don't think will ever happen. The timescale is too large, and they've been wiping out all evidence of themselves for thousands of years.

i think we will. they failed to destroy all the protheans. its a big galaxy.

 

[blindthrall]

The Calculator, that thing may not have had a sense of humor, but it really knew how to make things difficult for you. Besides having an army of robots it also captures your commander and turns him against you. Once you defeat the Calculator though, it speaks to you for the first time and offers a compromise and at first you may think that it's just screwing with you, but you then realize that it is sincere about it's offer and could potentially bring stabilization to the Wasteland, you just have to give up your life in order to do it. Evil.

Overlooked villain from an under-appreciated game. Good call.

 

[blindthrall]

As I understand it is implied that

Spoiler: ME2 ending spoilers

each Reaper is born out of the race it will reap. Biomass is collected by liquidating species members and the reaper is somehow born

of course that doesn't explain where the original lot came from but basically Reapers make more of themselves

EDIT-wow server borked on me
OT: I voted Glados as CABAL wasn't up there; while "her" evil is debatable I loved the mind games

i know that. but if something is built instead of being hatched or birthed or growing out of something isn't it artificial?

With the scale of the Reapers, that's like saying individual cells built you. Building materials don't matter, you can easily make a machine from carbon, which is all we are. We won't know if they're true AIs until we know their origin, which I don't think will ever happen. The timescale is too large, and they've been wiping out all evidence of themselves for thousands of years.

i think we will. they failed to destroy all the protheans. its a big galaxy.

They'll make that chapter of the Codex DLC.

 

[Thaluikhain]

SkyNet reduced humanity to MILLIONs, instead of BILLIONS.

Yeah, and it also had the clever idea of spreading itself out, so it would be in computers in cities all over the world, instead of one location where it could be destroyed.

It then launched nuclear missiles to destroy all the cities of the world, ruining the power and communications infrastructure and...wait...yeah, let's forgot T3.

(Besides the Matrix, but they were so stupid they thought human generated electricity was the most efficient energy sources available without a sun. Seriously?).

They were originally putting people into farms so the machines could use the computing power of the human brains. But they figured the audience wouldn't understand that, so they changed it. It's not the machines that were stupid, it was the humans, therefore.

 

[Wereduck]

Glados is beating SHODAN? what the bloody christ?

Agreed - Shodan is the girl from The Ring and by comparison Glados is a kid who runs up behind you and yells "Boo!".

 

[II2]

Wintermute.

I like you.

I'd like to submit

Also, whoever put up Fallout Tactic's "The Calculator" had a great left field entry.

 

[brodie21]

As I understand it is implied that

Spoiler: ME2 ending spoilers

each Reaper is born out of the race it will reap. Biomass is collected by liquidating species members and the reaper is somehow born

of course that doesn't explain where the original lot came from but basically Reapers make more of themselves

EDIT-wow server borked on me
OT: I voted Glados as CABAL wasn't up there; while "her" evil is debatable I loved the mind games

i know that. but if something is built instead of being hatched or birthed or growing out of something isn't it artificial?

With the scale of the Reapers, that's like saying individual cells built you. Building materials don't matter, you can easily make a machine from carbon, which is all we are. We won't know if they're true AIs until we know their origin, which I don't think will ever happen. The timescale is too large, and they've been wiping out all evidence of themselves for thousands of years.

i think we will. they failed to destroy all the protheans. its a big galaxy.

of course. 400 ms points. and another 50 ms points for each read
They'll make that chapter of the Codex DLC.

 

[Jfswift]

Although Glados is amusing, it's no where near as competent as SkyNet.

 

[Ubermetalhed]

Glados is beating SHODAN? what the bloody christ?

My reaction exactly.

It's crazy that even now Valve still nicks ideas from Looking Glass studios masterpiece System Shock 2.

To be fair we should all vote for Hal 9k as he is the original evil A.I.

 

[mireko]

T2 was the last good Terminator movie, so SkyNet is dead to me.

Had too much of a ***** of a time getting SS2 running on my computer, so GlaDOS, you win this time.

I'd like to submit
-SHODAN x GlaDOS-

Best evil A.I. pairing ever.

EDIT: Also, HAL isn't evil. He's just determined.

 

[hem dazon 90]

Wintermute and Neuromancer

 

[Raregolddragon]

GLaDOS

Becuse most evil AIs have some for of logic GLaDOS dose not seem to have anything that looks like a global plan to take over the world.

 

[Distortionfile]

I'd like to add to the a.i. debate. The Replicants were genetically engineered. They were created artificially from organic material. So, are they a.i. or synthetic intelligence?

I voted for skynet because it is the most powerful and ominous on the list. Any old computer can dominate a space station, space ship, or research complex, but only a true malevolence can whip out most of humanity and sharpen their teeth on what remains, altering history again and again.
Its hypothetically possible that skynet intentionally 'created' John Conner in the first place to have some kind of real challenge in their present day. The terminator could have happened on any random sarah conner and ended up with a similar result after a life time of programming to become a messiah. The picture of sarah is irrelevant because we don't necessarily see the events of the very first time line in the film.