Artificial intelligence in fiction

Artificial intelligence is a recurrent theme in science fiction, whether utopian, emphasising the potential benefits, or dystopian, emphasising the dangers.

The notion of machines with human-like intelligence dates back at least to Samuel Butler's 1872 novel Erewhon. Since then, many science fiction stories have presented different effects of creating such intelligence, often involving rebellions by robots. Among the best known of these are Stanley Kubrick's 1968 2001: A Space Odyssey with its murderous onboard computer HAL 9000, contrasting with the more benign R2-D2 in George Lucas's 1977 Star Wars and the eponymous robot in Pixar's 2008 WALL-E.

Scientists and engineers have noted the implausibility of many science fiction scenarios, but have mentioned fictional robots many times in artificial intelligence research articles, most often in a utopian context.