---
title: "Artificial intelligence"
chunk: 16/16
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:56:14.639860+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Thought-capable artificial beings have appeared as storytelling devices since antiquity, and have been a persistent theme in science fiction.
A common trope in these works began with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, where a human creation becomes a threat to its masters. This includes such works as Arthur C. Clarke's and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (both 1968), with HAL 9000, the murderous computer in charge of the Discovery One spaceship, as well as Blade Runner (1982), The Terminator (1984) and The Matrix (1999). In contrast, the rare loyal robots such as Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and Bishop from Aliens (1986) are less prominent in popular culture.
Isaac Asimov introduced the Three Laws of Robotics in many stories, most notably with the "Multivac" super-intelligent computer. Asimov's laws are often brought up during lay discussions of machine ethics; while almost all artificial intelligence researchers are familiar with Asimov's laws through popular culture, they generally consider the laws useless for many reasons, one of which is their ambiguity.
Several works use AI to force us to confront the fundamental question of what makes us human, showing us artificial beings that have the ability to feel, and thus to suffer. This appears in Karel Čapek's R.U.R., the films A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Ex Machina, as well as the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by Philip K. Dick. Dick considers the idea that our understanding of human subjectivity is altered by technology created with artificial intelligence.

== See also ==

== Explanatory notes ==

== References ==

=== Textbooks ===

=== History of AI ===

=== Other sources ===

== External links ==

Hauser, Larry. "Artificial Intelligence". In Fieser, James; Dowden, Bradley (eds.). Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002. OCLC 37741658.