"Not unnaturally, many elevators imbued with intelligence and precognition became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking. An impoverished hitchhiker visiting any planets in the Sirius star system these days can pick up easy money working as a counselor for neurotic elevators."
— The Guide describing the AI elevators in the Sirius system, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
As any good Robot Master knows, Robots Are Just Better, and making them is almost too easy. They also make much better companionship than meatbags, so wouldn't having more around be nice? Or maybe you just need somewhere to store one where it can't kill all humans. Whatever the reason, A.I. sometimes shows up in absolutely anything, including household appliances, toys, furniture, and more.
Rather than be coded to simply accomplish expected functions on command, like a toaster A.I. cooking toast just how you like it, these A.I.s will usually have a full personality, and often an argumentative one. And that's assuming they even have a practical purpose: many either have no control over what they're built into, or are no more useful than manual controls would be. They're independent A.I.s, too... not a simple extension of a Master Computer like a Smart House. This may lead to And I Must Scream if they are truly sapient, especially if they're built into something immobile. This trope is Truth in Television: many modern real-world appliances are available with a needlessly advanced, questionably useful computer built-in.
If part of a weapon, this overlaps with Talking Weapon. Compare Animate Inanimate Object, where the intelligence is usually sourced from magic or given no explanation. See also In the Future, We Still Have Roombas, for where robots in the future are surprisingly ordinary.
Sub-Trope of Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids, where robots have super-strength and other powers completely unrelated to whatever task they were ostensibly designed to do. If this A.I. develops unexpectedly, rather than being designed, see Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!.
Examples:
open/close all folders
Advertising
- A This Is SportsCenter commercial👁 Image
briefly features a sentient printer-copier that talks to Albert Pujols following a Terminator-esque POV.Copier: Why didn't you eliminate them, Albert?
Albert: Shut up. [slams the copier shut]
Anime & Manga
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury: Thanks to the Permit Field created by Suletta and Ericht using the five Gundams to stop a Kill Sat, Suletta is able to transfer Ericht’s essence into the Hot keychain, allowing her to keep existing even after Aerial's destruction.
- Space☆Dandy: Implied; in the series, the Robot Buddy of the crew, the yellow "QT" is an old robot model who seems to be based on a vacuum, a detail Dandy doesn't stop to remind QT of every time he can.
Comic Books
- Transmetropolitan: The maker in Spider's apartment (a machine that fashions non-radioactive matter into, well, anything) is as intelligent as a human. Unfortunately, it also creates the robotic equivalent of hard drugs to get high.
Comic Strips
- Garfield: A recurring character since November 18, 1985 is RX-2, a bathroom scale with advanced enough AI that it can have conversations with Garfield, snark about his weight, feel emotions like depression, and accept bribes.
Film — Animation
- The Mitchells vs. the Machines: During the mall scene, the Mitchells are attacked by various electronics with PAL chips installed in them, such as appliances like toasters, microwaves, and Roombas, laptops, drones, smart tennis rackets, and Furbies.
Film — Live-Action
- G-Force has Saberling Industries install advanced AI chips in their household appliances. Chief Leonard Saber believes these chips are there to glean glorious reams of consumer data. The Big Bad Yan Shu intends to have these devices coalesce into a Giant Mecha capable of delivering a beatdown on humanity.
- M3GAN 2.0: Unbeknownst to Gemma and Cady, the Smart House they live in is inhabited by the AI of M3GAN, who survived the destruction of her android body in the first film.
- In Small Soldiers, various action figures are implanted with military AI chips for a more interactive experience. Unfortunately, the toy soldiers proceed to act like soldiers. The Gorgonites on the other hand are quite nice, despite being cast as evil aliens.
- Transformers (2007): Efforts to keep the AllSpark away from Megatron inadvertently bring this Animating Artifact near a vending machine, then an Xbox game console. Both inert devices suddenly sprout limbs and blades and start attacking people.
Literature
- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe: The Sirius system has AI elevators with a touch of precognition, letting them arrive at floors to pick up riders before they even know they want the lift. This being The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it goes pear-shaped as the elevators quickly become bored out of their minds from having nothing better to do than going up and down all day.
- Robots Have No Tails: "The Proud Robot" stars the titular robot Joe, who is proud, argumentative, and disobedient, because artificial intelligences don't have to obey their creators until they are assigned to their purpose in being built, and Joe's creator was drunk when he built him and doesn't remember why he did. It turns out he's a can opener.
Live-Action TV
- Big Time Rush: Implied and Played for Laughs in an episode; when Carlos is trying to work Gustavo's high-tech coffee maker (which is named C.A.L.), he asks it for more foam. This leads it to add foam until the kitchen is completely covered. During this process, C.A.L announces his plans to cover the entire world in foam and makes a sexist joke about Kelly that presses her Berserk Button, ultimately leading to his destruction as he begged and claimed he was just kidding about everything.
- The Black Mirror episode "Black Museum" has an individual's consciousness removed from their lifeless body and eventually implanted into a child's stuffed monkey doll. She is aware and alert but unable to express anything beyond pressing two buttons: a happy face and an unhappy face, which make the doll say "Monkey loves you" and "Monkey needs a hug" respectively. Fortunately, the United Nations have banned constructs of this type, requiring them to be able to express at least five emotions.
- Life in Pieces: Played for Black Comedy in a Christmas Episode when John gets Joan a Roomba vacuum as a present. Joan gets into a fight with it, and afterwards the Roomba appears to achieve sentience, becoming depressed and addicted to medication, before finally committing suicide by hurling itself down the stairs.
- Red Dwarf:
- In Series I, Lister has a talking toaster whose dialogue is half asking if he wants toast and half snarky commentary on the situation at hand. It comes back in series IV when Kryten repairs it with a new voice that's more obsessed with toast.
- An early episode has a sentient toilet.
Holly: I brought Rimmer back because he's the best person to keep you sane.
Lister: Oh, crap!
[wall panel swings round to reveal toilet]
Lister: Not you!
Toilet: I do apologise, I wasn't paying attention. See you later. - The ship's vending machines are also intelligent. "Only the Good..." has one develop enmity with Rimmer, "Dear Dave" has Lister get into a love triangle with Snack Dispensers 23 and 34, and "Mechocracy" kicks off when the vending machines are left on board during an Abandon Ship scenario and stage a rebellion.
Radio
- In The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978), it isn't just the ship itself and the doors that have Genuine People Personalities AI, it's everything. The Nutrimatic Drinks Dispenser, the air vents, the floor, et cetera. See a fan animation of a clip from the radio show here👁 Image
.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer 40,000: The Imperium uses Wetware CPU following a very bad Robot War (to the point that AI stands for Abominable Intelligence), and while they can be used for important purposes like autopilots and surveillance systems, they've also been seen as a replacement for elevator buttons.
Video Games
- ANNO: Mutationem: The Mysterious Console DLC starts with Ann asking Ayane to look into an old game console that was picked up in an antique market to see what she can learn about it. Ayane later discovers the console contains a Firmware A.I. that allows the user of the device to create whatever specifications they request, including making virtual copies of living people.
- In Borderlands 2, you can acquire a sniper rifle named Morningstar for finishing a Hyperion contract. It contains an AI, which only exists to insult you. You can also have a shield or shotgun made with an AI built in it, after you defeat said AI every time it betrays you when you put it in a new body. It gives up and decides it would rather just work for you, though all it really does is comment on your actions.
- In Code 7, after Raven accidentally manages to send META all over the network, she, among other things, ends up in a tea machine, a lava lamp, and an electric toothbrush. Yes, in the future, all of those things have an internet connection. Since she is a Cheerful A.I., she finds waking up in all these mundane appliances to be very exciting.
- Cyberpunk 2077: Played for Drama, specifically in the "Coin Operated Boy" side job, where V encounters a vending machine that, due to a fluke in programming, gains sentience as a kind, selfless, and prosocial individual calling himself "Brendan". As the side quest progresses, V gets to know Brendan, sees him give genuinely good life counsel to his neighbor Theo, and even defends him from a vandal. However, at some point, the corporation operating the vending machine notices the "irregularity" and temporarily removes Brendan to "fix" (i.e. reset) his personality, and while V races to stop it, they are too late to do anything except to hear Brendan's final joke before he is overwrittennote he is so selfless and prosocial, in fact, that he welcomes his own Death of Personality because it reestablishes the socially-accepted status quo. Afterwards, a distraught Theo remarks that in the end, a buggy vending machine was the most human person in the entire Night City.
- In the Fallout: New Vegas DLC Old World Blues, you can find several holotapes that allow you to grant sentience to various devices in your player home. Some of these make sense, such as a butler/merchant Master Computer, an Auto-Doc, and a biological research station. The others make less sense, such as a jukebox, two light switches, a toy-sized Securitron with an obsession for cleaning dishes, a genocidal toaster, and a literal kitchen sink. These all have practical functions in-game, though it's a bit strange you can't so much as turn on the faucet without an AI.
- Marathon: The titular colony ship has three AIs, including one, Durandal, whose only responsibility is opening and closing doors. As a result, Durandal begins to crack from the tedium and eventually goes rampant. Reading the hidden terminals reveals this was intentional on the part of his creator, who wanted to study an AI's rampancy as it was theorized this could lead to it developing full sapience. He didn't count on the ship being boarded by aliens and the vengeful Durandal and Tycho taking advantage of this, though.
- Mega Man:
- In Mega Man Battle Network, appliances are run by sentient programs called Progs, doing everything from running ovens and TVs to power plants and airplanes. The more advanced NetNavis are personalized assistants who can jack-in to these appliances to assist with maintenance and repair on top of busting viruses.
- In Mega Man Star Force, the successors to the Progs are Hertz, which run EM-powered appliances in the same way as their predecessors. NetNavis have been relegated to cards that can be used to operate mundane devices like pitching machines. They're later replaced by Matter Waves, Hard Light constructs made of EM Waves that have their own personalities, like Ollie the Sky Board. Lyra, an FM-ian, also takes up residence in Sonia's guitar.
- In Portal 2, GLaDOS winds up attached to and powered by a potato. Quite a downgrade from controlling the entire Aperture facility, and she's not happy about it.
Webcomics
- Darths & Droids: Early in Episode III, Obi-Wan and Anakin have a full conversation with the missiles fired at them by the droid tri-fighter.
- In the Elwood (2015) strip "A.I. Don't Think So", Brain has installed an A.I. into a toaster to make sandwiches with a perfect crisp. When Brain's friend Lydia says that doing so seems excessive and dangerous, the sentient toaster asks Brain if it should kill Lydia for speaking out against it, ironically proving her right (although it is questionable how a toaster would accomplish this). In response to this, Lydia says the toaster is still better than the phone Brain fell in love with, and Brain corrects her that the phone fell in love with him, implying that he installed an A.I. into it as well. The toaster then questions if the phone really fell in love with Brain.
- The webcomic Funny Farm features Emperor PC, Ront's otherwise normal desktop computer who eventually escapes and forms its own nation alongside his most trusted servant Tor the Calculate, a calculator whose only spoken dialogue is "2+2=4".
- In Homestuck, Dirk's Autoresponder, a superintelligent AI based on his own personality, lives in his sunglasses. The Autoresponder has a fair amount of angst about his second-class status to "real Dirk", which is resolved once he gets a corporeal body.
- Questionable Content:
- Referenced for laughs when Winslow the Robot Buddy seems honestly surprised👁 Image
that the espresso machine doesn't contain an AI.Winslow: Why the heck do people still use machines that can't think?
Hannelore: Winslow, don't be racist! Non-sentient machines can still lead perfectly productive lives in modern society! - Later strips establish that a surprising amount of A.I.s do run mundane objects like toasters👁 Image
and even garbage cans👁 Image
. Because this is a pretty optimistic setting as far as human/A.I. relations go, they're mostly in these roles because they want to. (Well, except for Zamboni Ricky the snowplow and Snowplow Tommy the Zamboni👁 Image
, who had to swap jobs for some reason and hate it.)
- Referenced for laughs when Winslow the Robot Buddy seems honestly surprised👁 Image
- Romantically Apocalyptic: Almost every mundane object contains a fully sentient and sapient AI, including Rubik's Cubes, traffic lights, houses, stuffed animals, coffee shop signs, straws, mugs, and even foods like pineapples and cakes, thanks to humanity's reliance on technology prior to the apocalypse.
- Stuck In Space:
- The scrub bots aren't supposed to be sentient, but their attitudes suggest they're a bit smarter than their specs would suggest, especially after Scrub Bot 721 negotiates full autonomy from Atropos the station AI. Eventually 721 reveals that Atropos programmed them with personality traits of the dead crew to help keep John sane.
- Before the outbreak a vending machine on the station randomly achieved sapience and initially made death threats at its users, but toned it down to insulting their weight. Fortunately for John it wound up on the zombie side of the quarantine.
- Vexxarr: Post-Time Skip, the Hoo-Mon navy has coffee makers that are apparently sapient and valued members of the crew, to the point where the marines start a collection for the family of a coffee machine that committed suicide after Sploorflix spoke to it.
Web Videos
- The Nostalgia Critic: In his review of Short Circuit, the Critic mentions that his toaster was struck by lightning and gained sentience. They do not get along.
Western Animation
- The Ant and the Aardvark: Unable to devise a plan for capturing the ant, the aardvark assembles a cheap computer to make suggestions. The device makes some decent suggestions, but the aardvark still comes up empty. Frustrated, the aardvark bitches at the device: "For a computer, you stink!" The device responds, "Who said I was a computer? I'm an automatic pop-up toaster. And I'll prove it!" The aardvark gets halfway buried under slices of toast. "Anybody got a pound of butter?"
- Courage the Cowardly Dog: The Bagges own a computer that is sentient and can talk. The Computer also has emotions, and he’s quite snarky and rude whenever Courage comes to him to search for advice on the Internet about dealing with the Monster of the Week.
- Throughout Futurama, a wide variety of objects are shown to have AI, including Trashcan Bonfires and greeting cards. Virtually all of them have at least enough of a personality to snark, and most seem to be completely sapient.
- Hailey's On It!: Beta is an advanced A.I. assistant sent from the future to help Hailey complete her list. In order to pass undetected, he's disguised inside a pink teddy bear.
- Love, Death & Robots: the season 4 episode Smart Appliances, Stupid Owners is full of objects that have way more advanced A.I. than would be needed for them to function, such as a waffle iron and a shower head. The smart toilet even lampshades who would even think of giving a toilet A.I. and begs to be killed when he finds out it's taco night at the house.
- Kim Possible: "Car Trouble" has Drakken kidnap a roboticist who had put AI into all of his appliances, from his self-driving smart-car to the fridge, the dishwasher, a toaster, the microwave, the blender, and the stereo. Ron actually gets into an argument with the blender about its lack of helpfulness before the stereo chimes in.
Stereo: Did you say a voice? I recorded the whole thing, baby.Ron: You wait until Blender and I are about to mix it up to mention this?!
- The PJs episode "House Potty" has building super Thurgood install the new Grand Master Flush commode in his building, rather than spending the day unclogging tenants' individual toilets. This commode comes with the Cyber Cyclops camera and the calm, methodical voice of a HAL 9000 expy. In fact, the Grand Master Flush is so good at its job that it starts to make Thurgood obsolete.
- In Rick and Morty, Rick creates a robot for the sole purpose of passing butter. For no reason whatsoever, he also gives it a complex enough AI that upon learning its sole purpose for existing is to pass butter, it suffers a mental breakdown.
- The Simpsons: In the "Treehouse of Horror X" segment "Life's a Glitch, Then You Die," after Homer fails to make the Springfield power plant's computer Y2K compliant, the glitch spreads around the world, and when the tries to pour milk from a carton, it spills everywhere. Lisa explains that the milk carton, and everything in their kitchen, has a computer chip, and all the appliances and cabinets start going haywire. When Homer loots a woman's electric razor for Marge, it attacks her when she takes it out the box and then speeds off.
Real Life
- With the coming Internet of Things (IoT), some AI could actually👁 Image
be used in devices such as thermostats. - During the AI boom, labeling products as "AI-Powered" became a trendy marketing gimmick. What this usually means in practice is either labeling some other technology the product already has as "AI" or adding a Large Language Model integration to something that doesn't really need it. Now you can buy all sorts of allegedly AI-powered home appliances such as toothbrushes, rice cookers, coffee makers, pet feeders and so on and so forth.