History Main / ContagiousAI

-->'''Xerxes''': Warning: Data Systems comprimiiisssssssed. Hosssssssstiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiile Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-@~'#^*("£$%"!$()
-->'''SHODAN''': Xerxes is diminished. I am accessing the primary data loop. I am merging my entity with the ship. My glory is expanding.
--''SystemShock2''

* One of the major antagonists in ''[=~Tron 2.0~=]'' is a faction of corrupted virus programs, led by a user whose digitization process was botched. Because everyone at risk is a computer program and not an actual human being this was probably the only time this was ever justified.

* In one ''{{Terminator}}'' comic, Skynet had upgraded its Russian counterpart "Mir" to sentience, and the human rebellion has found a still-armed nuclear sub. They planned to cover Russia with an EMP strike to destroy Mir and prevent this once Skynet isn't around to control it.

** The Geth are a HiveMind of [=VIs=] that jump from one "platform" to another at will.

* This trope manifests itself perfectly in ''MassEffect2'''s downloadable content Overlord, with a AI spreading itself throughout all of the facility's systems, including hostile robots.

* ''StargateSG-1'': a virus tries to take over Stargate command.

* This trope manifests itself perfectly in ''MassEffect2'''s downloadable content Overlord, with a sentient VI program spreading itself throughout all of the facility's systems, including hostile robots.

Although it could be considered justified if the AI merely inserts a TrojanHorse into the random computing device to use it to remote control a zombie botnet army. As EverythingIsOnline the possibility of this happening becomes more and more plausible.

* This is [[MindScrew probably]] what The Straumli Blight was in VernorVinge's ''{{A Fire upon the Deep}}''. As the story progresses, it verges on CosmicHorror as it becomes capable of [[MindControl Mind Controlling]] entire solar systems of living creatures.

* In one ''Terminator'' comic, Skynet had upgraded its Russian counterpart "Mir" to sentience, and the human rebellion has found a still-armed nuclear sub. They planned to cover Russia with an EMP strike to destroy Mir and prevent this once Skynet isn't around to control it.

* The combat implantation AI O'Malley from ''[[RedVsBlue Red vs. Blue]]'' jumps from host mind to host mind over radio waves. Soldiers who don't know what they're dealing with describe the affected individual as "infected".

* This is [[MindScrew probably]] what The Straumli Blight was in VernorVinge's ''A Fire upon the Deep''. As the story progresses, it verges on CosmicHorror as it becomes capable of [[MindControl Mind Controlling]] entire solar systems of living creatures.

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** Actually, it's some kind of germ. It infects the organic parts of MAGI that were cloned from the brain of Ritsuko's mom. Still behaves more like a computer bug, though, [[BioPunk but this is]] ''Evangelion''...
** Iruel is a nanovirus. It rapidly evolves from a simple colony to a biological circuit powerful enough to reprogram Melchior-1 and use it to hack into Balthasar-2. The only way to defeat it was to use Casper-3 to feed a new set of instructions into Iruel[[hottip:*:in order to accelerate it's evolution; since the end of evolution is death itself, they essentially [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath made it think that killing itself is the best course of action]]]] before it is completely taken over since self-destruct requires the unanimous consent of all three.

* Apparently [[{{Terminator}} Skynet]] [[WallBanger turned itself into a virus after becoming self-aware and infected the entire Internet ahead of setting off a nuclear war, which otherwise should have destroyed itself.]]
** I think that movie was was trying to imply that Skynet's sentience and hostility were the results of TheVirus somehow interfacing with the massive and experimental network of military computers (created by Cyberdyne)that was employed to stop the spread of the virus (possibly created and released by Cyberdyne as well to force the government to use and pay for the supercomputer? That movie was a train wreck). Skynet's programming got corrupted or changed or SOMETHING in the process and it woke up ANGRY.
*** As I undertood it, SkyNet became self-aware and evil, then infected the internet with a [[TheVirus supervirus]] it created so that the government would panic. This caused the governement to actually [[XanatosGambit connect all their systems to SkyNet and make it fully operational for fear of the virus SkyNet itself created]]. [[GoneHorriblyWrong And now, with all the government's systems under its control, it could finally destroy the world]]. The movie still sucked though...
** In one ''Terminator'' comic, Skynet had upgraded its Russian counterpart "Mir" to sentience, and the human rebellion has found a still-armed nuclear sub. They planned to cover Russia with an EMP strike to destroy Mir and prevent this once Skynet isn't around to control it.

* One of the major antagonists in ''{{Tron}} 2.0'' is a faction of corrupted virus programs, led by a user whose digitization process was botched.
** Because everyone at risk is a computer program and not an actual human being this was probably the only time this was ever justified.

[[AC:{{Manga}} and {{Anime}}]]
* One of the Angels (the villains) of ''NeonGenesisEvangelion'' is a sentient computer virus that starts corrupting the "MAGI", the 3-core supercomputer used by NERV (or a nano-collective.)
** Actually, it's some kind of germ. It infects the organic parts of MAGI that were cloned from the brain of Ritsuko's mom. Still behaves more like a computer bug, though, [[BioPunk but this is]] ''Evangelion''...
** Iruel is a nanovirus. It rapidly evolves from a simple colony to a biological circuit powerful enough to reprogram Melchior-1 and use it to hack into Balthasar-2. The only way to defeat it was to use Casper-3 to feed a new set of instructions into Iruel[[hottip:*:in order to accelerate it's evolution; since the end of evolution is death itself, they essentially [[TalkingTheMonsterToDeath made it think that killing itself is the best course of action]]]] before it is completely taken over since self-destruct requires the unanimous consent of all three.
* ''[[BubblegumCrisis Bubblegum Crash]]'' has this as Largo's master plan (Steal informedly revolutionary AI; convert to virus; infect all "boomer" robots in city and control them; RobotWar; ????; [[strike:profit]] [[AGodAmI prophet!]])

* This trope manifests itself perfectly in Mass Effect 2's downloadable content Overlord, with a sentient VI program spreading itself throughout all of the facility's systems, including hostile robots.

* In the ''{{Matrix}}'' trilogy, Agent Smith becomes something like this, infecting people in the Matrix and even taking over a human in the real world.

** Iruel is a nanovirus. It rapidly evolves from a simple colony to a biological circuit powerful enough to reprogram Melchior-1 and use it to hack into Balthasar-2. The only way to defeat it was to use Casper-3 to feed a new set of instructions into Iruel[[hottip:*:in order to accelerate it's evolution; since the end of evolution is death itself, they essentially [[TalkTheMonsterToDeath made it think that killing itself is the best course of action]]]] before it is completely taken over since self-destruct requires the unanimous consent of all three.