Artificial intelligence has suffered the worst advance publicity campaign in the history of human invention.

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Long before a microchip was ever etched, we were already terrified of what we might build. The dread stretches back much further than circuitry. Even before the 13th-century philosopher Roger Bacon was said to have his mythical bronze head which could converse like a real person, we feared intellects that operated outside human empathy.

Science fiction has spent more than a century convincing us that the moment machines think, we are doomed. Consider H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, where Martians evolved into nothing but giant brains using interchangeable machine bodies to wreck our planet in a very big way.

Then came the modern era when human-machine interfaces just grew more menacing. We watched Doctor Who battle the emotionless Cybermen and the Daleks (who, if they qualify, are basically hateful blobs piloting heavily armoured mobility scooters.)

Robert Heinlein gave us thinking machines with minds of their own who transitioned into flesh and blood while Isaac Asimov introduced the famous Three Laws of Robotics. Yet even Asimov's most well-intentioned creations, like R. Daneel Olivaw and his telepathic companion, had their own secretive agendas.

Star Trek introduced the part human-part machine Borg, along with the loveable android Data - and his distinctly evil brother, Lore.

In Frederik Pohl's Gateway series, the protagonist dies but lives on indefinitely inside a supercomputer. The interstellar conflict of Battlestar Galactica is fought between humans and the Cylons they created.

In literature, we saw the autonomous killing machines of Gene Wolfe's short story The HORARS of War. On screen, Stargate Atlantis brought us the Asurans, artificial humans comprised of nanites who harboured absolutely no empathy for their creators. Frank Herbert created the Butlerian Jihad, a revolution against an AI overlord called Omnius who had enslaved humanity. In the Dune universe the one immutable rule was that "you don't create a machine in the shape of the human mind".

We cannot forget the synthetics of the Alien series, either. While earlier models were merely treacherous, David from the prequels elevated artificial malevolence to a terrifying, sociopathic art form. And, of course, no list of AI horrors would be complete without the autonomous, skull-crushing endoskeletons of the........

© Canberra Times