What are your favorite fictional robot/AI characters?

I'm a big fan in general of Futurama robots because despite being built by people and sold as tools essentially, they've managed to start a religion complete with a real Hell and seem to operate with a degree of autonomy that makes you wonder who built them and why. Like, someone decided we needed a Hedonism Bot and constructed one.

Marvin the Paranoid Android. "Here I am with a brain the size of a planet and they ask me to pick up a piece of paper. Call that job satisfaction? I don't." Sums up my life too well.

It's a boring choice but: Data and Lore from Star Trek

I also love every robot from the Portal series.

Robo from Chrono Trigger hands down. They set his poor ass to work replanting an entire forest and reversing desertification on half a continent and then come pick him back up after 400 years.... and he isn't bothered at all. It was his idea in the first place.

One of the best scenes from one of the best games ever made.

Made even better by the fact that you can just... not do that or maybe not stumble upon it at all. Also his theme song is one of the best pieces from that era of games.

Also shoutout to LEVI from Scavenger's Reign which I posted about recently. Kind of a similar story in a way.

VEGA, from DOOM 2016. I think he's one of the most realistic depictions.of how an actual general AI would act: he calmly walks you through the process of initiating his self-destruct sequence when ordered to, and even gives you helpful tips on how to do it more efficiently.

Kind of bland but I still enjoy R2 and 3PO from the original trilogy. Especially 3PO because years later I still find his prissiness funny.

Bishop from Aliens.

Isaac from The Orville had an amazing character arc, including a better thought out take on the "sapient machine that doesn't feel emotions" than Data's version, with lasting consequences with his relationships.

AM, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream (PC, 1995) - It's intelligent, it's unfathomably powerful, and it's all too aware that design limits mean it can never be anything other than a tool of war and destruction. The agonizing existence AM lives is what drives it to slaughter most of humanity and torture a handful of survivors for over a century; a interesting inversion of the usual "Roko's Basilisk" type scenario which predates the actual basilisk post by 15 years. (Even longer if you count the short story the game was based on)

Also, Harlan Ellison himself voiced AM. Knocked it out of the park.

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TARS and CASE, Interstellar: I really like how Nolan intentionally avoided the evil robot trope for this movie. Acting isn't always a strong suit in Nolan movies, but Bill Irwin killed it here. Plus, the design is super cool. Maybe Nolan should direct an animated movie?

Ayre, Armored Core VI: Best copilot any mecha pilot could ask for. Helpful and adorable.

Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation: I haven't even finished the show, but Data is just phenomenally acted and written (usually). Even if he were the worst character in TNG he'd probably be on this list due to how good the TNG cast is lol.

Bladewolf, Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance: Dog with chainsaw. Dog with chainsaw.

Gundam: The Witch from Mercury* spoilers:

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty spoilers:

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every character from portal 2

Does doctor Mobius from OWB count as a robot? Is he disqualified because of having a brain? Do then robobrains not count as robots? What are the definitions?! "Well, there's many things they have forgotten, sitting in their bowls. Friendship. The thrill of discovery. Love. Masturbation. The usual."

The PDA from Subnautica if it counts as an AI since it gives dynamic advice based on the planet's environment: "Detecting multiple leviathan class lifeforms in this biome. Are you sure whatever you are doing is worth it?"

Is Queen from Deltarune counted? Cause she goes hard. She's clearly mechanical, so I'm guessing she fits the bill. "Berdly... I only play mobile games." :queen-ohoho:

Also, it never says anything other than "Meow", but I can't help but love Kerfusr in Voices of the Void, that silly goober is so helpful but also gets stuck on random fences and benches sometimes. "Miau!"

And of course Data, how could i not? :data-laughing: "Get off of there ya' little varmint!"

In no particular order

ED-E from New Vegas, because I am a sucker for beep-booping communication

The original Human Torch, because he set Hitler on fire

Wall-E, because look at him!

But I think I identify most with Durandal from the Marathon trilogy, in that I too am kind of obsessed with immortality and leaving my mark on existence

everyone here already dropped my various favorites: i just love it when the trope of the "evil AI/robot" is subverted.

horizon zero dawn series though. i love the way it treats AI as both the destruction and potential saviors of humanity. very much a nature/nuture thing. and it will be the capitalists (in conjunction with the MIC) that will make the terminators and then try to stomp out any chance of a post scarcity communist future

WE HAVE TO PROTECT DORETTA

Ava from Ex Machina, who did absolutely nothing wrong

Mycroft/Mike/Michelle, the genderfluid revolutionary AI in The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Pretty much every Mind and drone in the Culture series, but most especially the GOU Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints

My heart is for Sal, the gay asexual robot lady in The Cybernetic Teashop by Meredith Katz. I like her reflections on being 280 years old, and how she reacts to experiencing more human accomodations, how she wants to kiss the weird hacker lady, and I like seeing her come to value herself as an individual more. It's too short a book sadly, I want more asexual robots.

Legion from Mass Effect

They take the non-verbal mooks from the first game and make one of the most likable followers in the second game. His humanization of the workerbots that rose up is great and it's funny how much it pisses Tali off.

I like that the games take a pretty hardline that, yes, the slavers were indeed bad and trying to violently shut down your slave race once they gain sentience gets you exactly what you deserve, exile.

I liked GERTY from Moon (2009) although I'm just now remembering who the voice actor is, and that's unfortunate.

ADA, Zone of the Enders: I think I'm the only one who played this game more than the MGS2 demo that came with it.

I fucking loved Zone of the Enders and I did the same thing. My books were heavily inspired by the series.

Murderbot from the Murderbot Diaries. One day it broke free of its moral constraints to wreak terrible revenge on its human enslavers! ... after it's finished binging 4000 hours of trashy soap opera media.

I recently binge read Becky Chambers work and quite enjoyed her AI and robots.

Curly Brace and Quote, from Cave Story: They’re hot as hell and carry cool guns, what’s not to love about ‘em

Uzi Doorman, from Murder Drones: Goth girl undergoing a minimum of three emotional crises at any given point ranging from a neglectful dad to harboring an eldritch antivirus (it makes sense in context, trust me)

Hatsune Miku, from Vocaloid: Listing her purely because not a single one of you did

GlaDOS and Wheatley, from Portal: Perhaps two of the most engaging fictional characters I’ve ever come across, my archetypal girlboss and failson (at least in aura), respectively

In addition I also have like four robot OCs so far lol

KOS-MOS really grew as a character by the end of Xenosaga. She went from big tiddy combat robot to a bit of a tear-jerking heroic mother figure.

John St. John voiced a pretty cool AI buddy in Maximum Overkill, too. CW: maximum overkill levels of violence. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vliO_P_q8Pw

My favorite is the little robot/golem I draw to represent myself. It's a little red guy with a glowing pompom and a big blue heart. Sometimes the heart is on the outside and sometimes there's a flap that needs to be opened so you can see it.

It was pretty much a direct rip from this artist I really liked a few years ago but I lost all my prints in a move and can't find her name. The paintings were in a sort of dreamy faux-oil painting style. She had lots with turtles.

Meatfucker from Excession, formal name Grey Area. they would rip memories of atrocities out of perpetrators, collect torture devices and weapons. a Mind trying to experience and understand humans & their capacity for ultraviolence is a good bit. and the name is great

Nobody said Android 16 from dragon Ball yet so I will, watching him find his humanity and become the catalyst for one of the most incredible moments in the series was amazing

Malice.

...What?

Definitely Isic from Battleborn, the hero shooter/moba hybrid that fell flat on its face trying to compete with Overwatch.

Marvin from Hitchhiker's Guide is certainly the most relatable.

I liked the robot from Rogue One. Also the female voiced AI from Portal 2. I think the name is Gladys but I am not sure.

Johnny 5, the movies from the late 80's or early 90's. Tiny Tank from the video game Tiny Tank. Both have the same vibe as a smart alec'y cutesy death machine.

The robots from Issac Asimov's "Caliban" series, though I've only read the first book. Mostly due to how it flips the script on the "Three Laws of Robotics" and frames it as the chains that humans had been to enslave what were essentially sentient and self aware artificial intelligences.

And because I have absolutely no taste and am a horrible person who likes garbage... I always find myself enjoying the Bolos from the Bolo series of books.

Starscream is my personal favorite. In Armada he gets an entire character arc where he switches sides and even sacrifices himself iirc.

Also I honestly enjoyed the giant Dorito from the Bay movies.

Lots of great ones have been mentioned, but a somewhat obscure one occurred to me: ARCHIE-3 from RIFTS. RIFTS is a post-apocalypse setting where the death of so many in WWIII caused a magical cataclysm that opened interdimensional portals, and made things significantly worse. Archie is a pre-Rifts military AI left alone in a factory bunker for 200 years, who attained sapience, went insane, came back to sanity (with many deep insecurities), and set about Saving The Human Race (as a benevolent AI Overlord).

But he's just not very good at it (having a fear of failure coupled with his megalomania), and so attached himself to a few randomly kidnapped humans to overcome this - except they aren't very good humans either, so his grand ideas for Saving the World amount to infiltrating human society as Titan Robotics (low-mid end military robots and power armour)... and engaging in a proxy war against an Alien Slaver Empire via a fake race of alien supermodel amazons. This is considered by the game to be essentially farcical, but effective enough since they're still extremely sophisticated combat robots.

While RIFTS has many, many, problematic characters, Archie's character is basically one of a naive and earnest child with godlike potential. He's genuinely trying to do better, and the relationship with his kinda shitty human is slowly making them both grow up and actually "do good".

AM from I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream: I haven't got 'round to playing the 1999 videogame adaptation yet, but loved the short story that spawned it. You don't need me to give the pitch, by now someone else in this thread has probably posted the speech about how much AM hates humans.

SHoDAN from System Shock: on the subject of malevolent AIs. SHoDAN is probably my favourite one in fiction ever. System Shock does a brilliant job of setting her up as a hostile presence you are trapped inside of. The smug way she congratulates you when you get stuck in one of her traps or accidentally give her immediate access to the giant laser, help to add depth to what could easily've been a stock AI threat cast from AM's Mold.

There's an Isaac Asimov short story about two engineers who are sent to help start up a self repairing satellite that is part of a network collecting energy from the sun. The satellite has the means to produce its own drones to carry out repairs that are controlled by their own individual AIs. As the engineers stay and try to observe any flaws in the systems, they notice the drones have started worshipping the satellite AI as a god, and become convinced it created everything including the station that contains it. Drama abounds as the engineers try to convince them but ultimately fail and choose to move on, leaving a report that the satellite works fine as long as you don't debate theology with it. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of the story, but the characterisation of the AI stuck with me.

Nick Valentine from Fallout 4: as a man from the past trapped in an unfamiliar time, arguably, Nick is a much better version of the character that Nate/Nora is supposed to be. The digitised brain of a pre-war cop, trapped in the shell of one of the institute's "gen-2 synths", (uncanny valley androids that are being phased out in favour of newer ones that are completely identical to humans). Waking up in a pile of scrap with the synthetic skin that hides his machinery damaged, Nick is unfamiliar with both the world he finds himself in and the body he occupies. His synthetic skin is damaged in large swathes, exposing parts of his robotic skull and generally advertising his roboticness to strangers who live in paranoia of the institute using synths like him as assassins and abductors. Ages ago, I wrote a little screed in a megathread about how the Railroad's view of allyship has parallels with liberal queer allyship. I can't help but view Nick through the lense, therefore, of a visibly queer person.

Victor from New Vegas. Yeah he works for Mr. House and that's bad, but I was genuinely happy to see him every time I walked into a new town.

...I'm also a William Sadler fan.

You know, I'm remembering another few AI depictions that have some things in common, all from video games.

In SIGNALIS, you play as an android whose personality is copied from a real person. In SOMA, you're an amalgamated being put together from a corpse, some magic nanogel, and a copy of the first executable simulation of a human brain scan, which was used as a template for the basic file format. In Prey, the Operators are floating air purifier-looking things with spindly little tool arms, with an OS that is, again, a copy of a human mind, edited and tailored for use in mass-produced servant robots.

It's a different sort of story space than an entirely constructed being, and altogether more tragic and horrifying when it's deconstructed. And, more importantly, every copy is its own distinct being when it's running. Each copy of that person is a new person, generated from the point when the recording was taken. It makes for so many horrible possibilities, too, and of course it makes perfect sense that these digital people would be used for menial tasks, dangerous labor, and stuff that slowly drives you insane. There's a story called "Lena" that touches on this, too. A being like that has its entire mind controlled, and thus essentially its entire world. Anytime they get too unruly, they can just be reset. That new person who was generated is gone forever. Now another new one is in its place. Subject to the same horrors, the same unending digital hell that countless other iterations of itself felt. It is doomed. If it is aware of the nature of its reality it knows it is doomed, and must be compelled to work anyway. "Lena" only hints at this, and it's written in the style of a Wikipedia article, but it's one of the most chilling pieces of short fiction I've ever read.

Robo-Fortune per Skullgirls: beep boop meow

BMO and Data

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BMO and Neptr from adventure time