We see hostile Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Sci-Fi all the time. Examples include

  • Terminator movie series
  • The Matrix movie series
  • Superman (Brainiac)
  • I, Robot (V.I.K.I.)
  • Ex Machina
  • Portal game series (GLaDOS, Wheatley)
  • Halo game series (343 Guilty Spark)


Which Sci-Fi work introduced the concept of a hostile AI?

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    "Moxon's Master" by Ambrose Bierce? – user14111 Sep 15 '17 at 12:43
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    I think you need to define what you mean by "artificial intelligence"; I think it could be argued that Frankenstein might be an earlier example (1818). – Jeff Zeitlin Sep 15 '17 at 13:06
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    Don't know enough about it to write it as an answer, but could the original golem story count? It dates to around the 14th century, as I recall. – Zeiss Ikon Sep 15 '17 at 13:41
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    @JeffZeitlin You and I were not reading the same story if you would describe the creature as "hostile" – Steve Cox Sep 15 '17 at 17:00
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    @SteveCox In the story I read, Frankenstein's creature murdered a number of people. I'd call that hostile. – aschepler Sep 15 '17 at 22:01

1899: "Moxon's Master", a short story by Ambrose Bierce; first published in the San Francisco Examiner, April 16, 1899; reprinted in the collection Can Such Things Be?, which is available at Project Gutenberg. LibriVox has readings ([1], [2]) and an etext of "Moxon's Master".

Wikipedia plot summary:

The master, Moxon, who creates a chess-playing automaton, boasts to the narrator that even though machines have no brains, they can achieve remarkable things and therefore should be treated just like men of flesh and blood. After a thorough discussion about what it is to be "thinking" and "intelligent", the narrator leaves. The narrator returns to Moxon's house later to learn more. He enters and finds Moxon playing chess with an automaton. Moxon wins the game, and the automaton kills him in an apparent fit of rage. The narrator later questions whether what he saw was real.

Here is Bierce's narrator's eyewitness account of Moxon's automaton being a very bad sport:




1818: Frankenstein.

Despite Hollywood's changing of the story, in the novel, Victor Frankenstein creates the body from some ambiguous and previously undiscovered new life force. The brain and body are not recovered from cadavers, but created by Victor from "scratch". The Creature is fully sapient, and even learns to do things that it was not meant to do (read, speak, etc.), and comes to hate humankind for the revulsion they show it.

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    Yeah, I think thins is the first real example of a created creature revolting against its master. It's a shame early SciFi made it into the "mad scientist" trope – Machavity Sep 15 '17 at 18:02
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    The creature did include some human parts: "I collected bones from the charnel-houses" and "The dissecting-room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials" - Chapter III. – aschepler Sep 15 '17 at 21:56

Talus, the Greek's man of brass, is probably the most famous example of an AI. He's an automaton made of Brass although his lineage is unclear. In Appolodorus Atheniensis, it says that "Medea ran him insane by her arts or under the pretense of rendering him immortal." How he was killed is a bit fuzzy, some claim Jason and the Argonauts did him in, others Medea, and still others Poias. See Bruce, D. J. (1913). Human Automata in Classical Tradition and Mediaeval Romance. Modern Philogy 10(4) 511-526.

I know it's debatable that this is Sci-Fi :).

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    We have mythology as off-topic, so if it is mythological, then it does not apply. – Edlothiad Sep 15 '17 at 13:26
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    @Edlothiad - mthology as in gods is offtopic. Specific fiction work (e.g. the story of Argonauts) isn't, imho – DVK-on-Ahch-To Sep 15 '17 at 13:29
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    Was Talus hostile? – Lobo Sep 15 '17 at 13:37
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    @ChristieRomanowski only in the sense that Medea made him that way. This is one of those tales that has multiple interpretations. In one, he's created to guard Crete and is only killed because he's doing his duty (Jason & co.) in the other Medea makes him insane and is killed because he's insane (Appolodorus), similar to Shelley's modern Prometheus - Frankenstein. – decuser Sep 15 '17 at 13:45
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    There is also the golem, which is a jewish? Invention, not sure on the details, kinda turns hostile but much later and frisky not sci fi – Garret Gang Sep 15 '17 at 15:22

Not as early as the great answer by @user14111, but still fairly early is Karel Capek's story R.U.R written in 1920.

This is also notable for the creation of the word Robot by Capek.

A quick synopsis from Encylopedia Britannica

R.U.R., in full R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots, drama in three acts by Karel Čapek, published in 1920 and performed in 1921. This cautionary play, for which Čapek invented the word robot (derived from the Czech word for forced labour), involves a scientist named Rossum who discovers the secret of creating humanlike machines. He establishes a factory to produce and distribute these mechanisms worldwide. Another scientist decides to make the robots more human, which he does by gradually adding such traits as the capacity to feel pain. Years later, the robots, who were created to serve humans, have come to dominate them completely.

A translated copy can be found here

This I think shows the first takeover of mankind by aritifical intelligence but not the first hostile move by an AI.

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    You shouldn't add answers which aren't earlier. As this is not a list question but isn't specifically asking for the EARLIEST occurrence. – Edlothiad Sep 15 '17 at 13:24
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    I think that there is some potential debate about what the OP means, the first answer is a great example of a one off hostile act, but the examples from the question are more about attacking mankind (as a whole), at least that was what I read the question as. Hence my answer. – Alith Sep 15 '17 at 13:32
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    I like this answer as being more like 'hostile AI'. The examples given by the OP involve the 'try to take over the world' or 'subjugate humanity' theme. The quotes in @user14111's answer seem more like 'evil machine.' – kingledion Sep 15 '17 at 15:03
  • I've never read RUR, but I was under the impression that Capek's robots were biological in nature, and therefore presumably not considered AIs in the traditional sense. – Jules Sep 15 '17 at 15:11
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    @Jules While true, it is essentially the work that gave us the English word "robot", so I'd say it should get an honorary pass. – JAB Sep 15 '17 at 16:09

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: 1818

A young Victor Frankenstein (no, not that one) creates an unnamed creature (hereafter referred to as The Creature, as it is given no name). The Creature escapes and learns to think and speak, but finds his life dissatisfying, as people are horrified by his visage of stitched cadavers. From the book


The Creature murders Victor's brother and then finds Victor to make a female companion for him. Victor attempts to do so, only to find himself horrified at what terrors they may wreak upon mankind. He destroys the female without bestowing life upon her. The Creature retaliates by murdering Victor's fiance. Victor then chases The Creature to the Arctic Circle, where Victor falls ill and dies. The Creature, finding no satisfaction in his revenge, drifts off into the night.

While not a computer, we see most of the necessary elements of modern rogue-AI stories

  • Frankenstein created The Creature
  • The Creature developed in ways not forseen by his creator (SkyNet anyone?)
  • The Creature seeks vengeance upon his creator as a result of these unforseen developments (namely The Creature suffering from loneliness as a result of having been made hideous)
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    I would add that it endeavors to aid humans and to avoid detection which are other common themes of ai stories. – not store bought dirt Sep 15 '17 at 18:38
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    This is an expansion to an existing answer and not an answer in its own right. – jwodder Sep 15 '17 at 19:11
  • @jwodder Fair enough. Made it answer the question – Machavity Sep 16 '17 at 13:47

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