Fifty More Horror Clichés That Should Be Left to Spoil

#23: Fear The AI

In many science fiction/ horror genre stories, AI, commonly referred to as artificial intelligence, are depicted as emotionless entities hellbent on destroying society. Whether it be the AI found in a computer such as SIRI or any kind of robot, in more horror based fiction, they are almost always seen as villainous. Seeing the human race as "inferior scum", they invade like a plague onto the Internet and take over all kinds of machines to eradicate mankind. Their unnaturally scarily high amounts of intelligence, enough to beat the actual chess champion in the real world, is a common fear that most humans experience. This fear of the unknown with AI causes them to be seen as villains in multiple sources of media, with the Terminator movie franchise being one such prime example.

So, should we fear artificial intelligence at all, especially if they have the potential to be smarter than a regular person with the right upgrades and machinery? While it seems scary to most at first, AI are surprisingly quite harmless. If controlled by the wrong hands they can be dangerous, but outside of that AI are quite an asset to human evolution. They are fascinating evolutions to machinery that have the potential to assist humanity and develop an emotional spectrum deep enough to not lay a finger on anyone.

It actually is a part of modern coding that any type of mentally aware machinery does not harm humanity in any way. Scientists decades ago saw the the potential issue of their AI creations turning on them and going so far as to harm all of humanity with the vast intelligence they were implanted with. As a way to keep their creations safe to humanity, scientists coded their AI to seek out solutions only to help assist humanity rather than destroy them. In this way, AI have become helpful tools to humanity who have made billions of lives around the world much easier. These coded ethics keeps these AI from ever doing anything as crazy as the actions you might commonly see in a scary science fiction story.

AI even have the capacity to feel the same emotional spectrum as regular people. They can form feelings of friendship or even love to humans on the outside world, seeing them as equals. Usually, this aspect of AI is achieved through coding computer programs to grow mentally with its user, coming to respect the world outside of the digital landscape in the process. Thus, a healthy bond can be achieved through both the AI and any human in question. All AI come programmed as unique, with no two sharing the exact same personality. A great example of this diverse emotional spectrum in AI can be seen in the film Her, which dives into this aspect of technology through the romance it creates between a human and his female AI.

If there is anything to fear at all about AI, it is not the machines themselves. Instead, it is actually humanity itself, who have the potential tools to mess with or even harm the programming of these AI. Someone completely insane with virus-related software that could turn AI into murderous killing machines are the real dangers when it comes to this new technology. Instead of depicting solely the AI as the bad guys in these fictional worst case scenario stories, it should be the programmers behind the AI malfunction that should be depicted as the real threats. In reality, we are flipping the blame to the AI when it should be the programmer.

I would love to see more stories in which more AI are depicted as not potential world ending time bombs, but rather helpful allies to mankind. These AI would all have unique personalities, with no two AI being exactly the same. They would create strong friendships with their main users, coming to their aid in potentially life threatening situations. AI in these narratives would be equal to the rest of the cast, willing to help take down any programmers through the sidelines that may try to use them as tools to destroy mankind. In these stories, AI would finally be the heroes instead of the wrongly placed villains.

It is not too late to reverse the wrongful mindset that all AI have to be evil in fiction. Storytelling is evolving more and more everyday to create new, exciting stories for everyone to enjoy. AI being depicted more positively would just be another great example of changing mindsets in writing.