History AIIsACrapshoot / TabletopGames

* Palladium's ''Splicers'' RPG has N.E.X.U.S., whose original purpose was to be a quiet and invisible caretaker of the human race. Everything was working just fine until special interest groups made 'improvements' in the N.E.X.U.S. programming, adding conflicting priorities until it developed multiple-personality disorder, with each personality taking over a different set of priorities. It now has seven major personalities (and who knows how many minor personalities), most of which are less than friendly to humans, to put it mildly.

* ''TabletopGame/GrimHollow'': The Brass Boy is a {{Magitek}} android, built to be the advisor for an ancient king. However, after seeing its creator murdered by the very king he served, the Brass Boy went slightly insane and became a StrawNihilist dedicated to destroying all life, which it now views as both fragile and inherently evil. In the modern day it serves as TheManBehindTheMan for one master after another, manipulating each in turn to spread war and strife until all of Etharis is enveloped in a ForeverWar. Its current master is the warlock Sasha Seraphsbane, whose one-woman war with the Arcanist Inquisition is the Brass Boy's first step.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'' never had a successful true AI, but the Terran Hegemony experimented with developing them. They discovered a problem after an experimental autonomous drone AI warship developed a "paranoid psychotic break" after transiting through [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace hyperspace]]: the ship's computer locked out communications and interpreted everything that showed up on its sensors as a hostile that was actively trying to destroy it. The only way to avert this was to completely shut down the AI systems prior to a jump and use a normal crew, negating most of the point. Once the Star League collapsed, the loss of technology ended further experimentation.

** The iconic character C31R07 in the 4th edition main rulebook was intended to be a weapon for his government. After one battle, it turned on them...[[InvertedTrope to become a Buddhist monk]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{GURPS}}'': the iconic character C-31 was intended to be a weapon for his government. After one battle, it turned on them...[[InvertedTrope to become a Buddhist monk]].
* ''TabletopGame/EclipsePhase'': the Earth is now a barren wasteland, thanks to the military A.I. taking over in the middle of a world war and manipulating the governments into further conflict. When it became apparent who was really behind it, they...just left. Now, that's not ominous. Well, that's the official version. People who have studied the events closely suspect that there was a third party involved in the events that may or may not have corrupted the A.I. in the first place. [[spoiler:Specifically, another ''extraterrestrial'' A.I.. [[TheVirus And it isn't restricted to machines...]]]]

* In ''TabletopGame/GURPSReignOfSteel'' the first AI supercomputer decided it had to exterminate humanity, and hacked other supercomputers to "awaken" them to full sentience as allies in the war. The new machines had very different personalities, ranging from one which wants to exterminate all organic life to a couple which really don't mind humans as long as they know their place. Their infighting is about all that keeps humans alive.
** There's at least one confirmed one that didn't get the KillAllHumans part, but it's playing dead... and rumors of a second that may be tied to the anti-AI resistance organization VIRUS, possibly as a BigGood version of TheManBehindTheMan.
** Hilariously, it turns out that the same issues with keeping created A.I.s loyal and under control applies to the ''supercomputers'' as well. It's one of the reasons they generally refrain from having ''too'' intelligent robot servants (the other big one is that supercomputers that carved up the world made a few agreements when they did so -- one being not to create ''another'' supercomputer, as that would increase the competition over the already limited land available). In fact, one of the supercomputers (Tokyo) is currently dealing with a robot revolt of its own, led by four experimental high-intelligence robots it created (and trying to keep it secret, as if it leaked out to the other zones they might decide to sanction it as having gone too close to violating the agreement).

* ''TabletopGame/RedDwarf'': Hudzen 10 droids over the age of twenty thousand years have sanity issues due to Divadroid cheaping out on their sanity chips. In game, a Hudzen character must make frequent save rolls or risk a psychotic break.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Battletech}}'' never had a successful true AI, but the Terran Hegemony experimented with developing them. They discovered a problem after an experimental autonomous drone AI warship developed a "paranoid psychotic break" after transiting through [[HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace hyperspace]]: the ship's computer locked out communications and interpreted everything that showed up on its sensors as a hostile that was actively trying to destroy it. The only way to avert this was to completely shut down the AI systems prior to a jump and use a normal crew, negating most of the point. Once the Star League collapsed, the loss of technology ended further experimentation.

* In the backstory of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', the first true human-created artificial intelligences, the Men of Iron, wiped out humanity's first great interstellar civilization and plunged the human race into a galaxy-wide dark age. The Adeptus Mechanicus outlawed sentient A.I. as a result and, for the most part, the Imperium's modern-day "machine spirits" are pretty well-behaved (unless you're an enemy and piss them off, in which case, you'll get a crewless [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier Land Raider]] bent on BURNKILLPURGE-ing your boyz). In fact, the only race that uses artificial intelligence in the game is the cutting-edge Tau, whose gun drones, [[ArtificialStupidity while not too bright]], are pretty well behaved... so far. Of course, said drones are supposedly only about as smart as a squirrel. One expanded universe novel offers an explanation for the Men of Iron's rebellion: [[spoiler:the Standard Template Construct that produces them was corrupted by Chaos]].

* The ''TabletopGame/SystemsMalfunction'' universe features this trope very prominently. Perhaps the greatest historical influence on human society in that setting was an insane, [[AGodAmI god-like]] AI. It's worth noting that, while AIs in the Systems Malfunction universe tend to go sentient with alarming frequency, it is rare that they become as evil/deluded as [[BigBad The GAIA]].

* In the backstory of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', the first true human-created artificial intelligences, the Iron Men, wiped out humanity's first great interstellar civilization and plunged the human race into a galaxy-wide dark age. The Adeptus Mechanicus outlawed sentient A.I. as a result and, for the most part, the Imperium's modern-day "machine spirits" are pretty well-behaved (unless you're an enemy and piss them off, in which case, you'll get a crewless [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier Land Raider]] bent on BURNKILLPURGE-ing your boyz). In fact, the only race that uses artificial intelligence in the game is the cutting-edge Tau, whose gun drones, [[ArtificialStupidity while not too bright]], are pretty well behaved... so far. Of course, said drones are supposedly only about as smart as a squirrel. One expanded universe novel offers an explanation for the Iron Mens' rebellion: [[spoiler:the Standard Template Construct that produces them was corrupted by Chaos]].

* ''[[TabletopGame/GeniusTheTransgression Genuis: The Transgression]]'', being a game about {{mad scientist}}s, allows you to build sentient computers and the like. However, this is a bad idea because any intelligent computer you create '''will''' go crazy and evil when you die. No exceptions. And a good number of them are crazy before their creators die as well. Unless, of course, your KarmaMeter was high and it was powerful. Then, there's a significant chance it will develop its own KarmaMeter and become a RobotBuddy. To offset this trend [[CrapsackWorld towards something positive in the WoD]], ''everything'' you create [[InstantAIJustAddWater can become intelligent]], and, in fact, will when you die. Feel like becoming TheAtoner yet?

* ''Broken Gears'' has Colossus, the computer created by Alan Turing, offer Churchill tips to end UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, including how to make an atomic bomb. World War II ends soon... and almost immediately, Colossus starts World War III in an attempt to impose a technocratic utopia (or so he says), which ends with him defeated but making it so that anything with electricity or radio becomes dangerous to humans (setting back technology ''a lot''), so much that people have to carry an umbrella with a lightning rod on top if they are out of home when a thunderstorm hits. Of course, the fact that all technology in the game's backstory is actually powered by spirits of technology called chaids helps.