Artificial Intelligence in Movies and on Television, 1975

2026-Oct-15 12:06AM EDT (Thu)

For half a century, artificial intelligence has been one of the most reliable characters in science fiction—not just a plot device but a recurring figure that directors, showrunners, and voice actors have used to ask the same handful of questions in slightly different registers. Is the machine a person? Does it have rights? Can it be funny? Can it be lonely? Can it be a hero, a villain, or both? The characters below are the ones that have shaped how audiences answer those questions, on the big screen and on the small one, from the mid-1970s to today.

This article is a unified overview. For deeper treatment of one medium, see the AI in Hollywood Movies and AI in Sci-Fi TV articles. For two of the most-discussed characters, see the dedicated KITT and EMH blurbs.

Where It Started (Pre-1975 Roots)

The 1975 cutoff is arbitrary in the way all historical cutoffs are, but the work that came immediately before it explains why the next decade took off.

HAL 9000, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) — Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke's Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic Computer is the archetype. Calm, polite, helpful, and lethal. Voice actor Douglas Rain recorded HAL's lines in roughly ten hours over two days and never saw the finished film, calling it "the longest short job I ever had" [1].
Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Silent Running (1972) — Douglas Trumbull's three service drones, named after Donald Duck's nephews, are the first genuinely affectionate on-screen robots: they plant trees, play poker, perform surgery, and one of them is left alone tending the last forest in space after Bruce Dern's character dies. They are, in retrospect, a rehearsal for Wall-E.
The Gunslinger, Westworld (1973) — Michael Crichton's android cowboy, played by Yul Brynner in a deliberate echo of his Magnificent Seven role, is the first movie villain whose menace comes from being a machine that no longer obeys. The film is also the first to use computer-generated imagery for the robot's point-of-view shots.
Bomb #20, Dark Star (1974) — John Carpenter and Dan O'Bannon's sentient thermonuclear bomb, which Lt. Doolittle attempts to talk out of detonation by teaching it phenomenology, is the first on-screen AI to win a comedy. Made for $60,000, it set a template that TV would pick up a decade later.

By 1975, the four templates were in place: the dangerous-but-helpful ship computer (HAL), the loyal domestic robot (Huey), the malfunctioning android (the Gunslinger), and the philosophical comedian (Bomb #20). Everything that follows is a variation on at least one of them.

1975–1989: The Thinking-Machine Era

The late 1970s and 1980s were when AI moved from a single-film phenomenon to a recurring cast member. The shift had two causes: Star Wars (1977) made practical effects cheap enough to put a robot on screen every week, and personal computers made the public literate enough to imagine one.

Movies

Ash, Alien (1979) — Ian Holm's quietly sinister science officer is the rare AI villain whose menace comes from understatement. The reveal that he is a synthetic is one of the franchise's most-quoted lines ("I prefer not to"), and his reappearance in Aliens (1986) confirmed that the android-on-board trope was here to stay.
V.I.N.CENT and Old B.O.B., The Black Hole (1979) — Disney's response to Star Wars included a rod-shaped optimist robot voiced by Roddy McDowall and a floating red-eyed menace voiced by Slim Pickens. The film flopped, but the robots got a Saturday-morning cartoon and a place in the canon.
The Ilia Probe and the V'Ger cloud, Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) — The first Trek feature gave the franchise its first on-screen AI threat: a reified Voyager 6 probe that has become a thinking machine and is looking for its creator. The film is ponderous, but the Ilia-Decker subplot is one of the first places a movie used a human-looking android to ask about the boundary between identity and data.
Roy Batty, Blade Runner (1982) — Rutger Hauer's "tears in rain" monologue is the single most-quoted line in AI cinema and the first on-screen argument that a replicant's memories are as real as a human's. The film's director's cut (1992) leaves the question of whether Deckard is himself a replicant deliberately open.
Johnny 5, Short Circuit (1986) — The military robot Number 5 gains sentience after a lightning strike and wants only two things: "input" and to not be taken apart. Tim Blaney's voice, childlike and eager, established the template for the lovable-android comedy that Pixar would later refine with Wall-E. Blaney later voiced Frank the Pug in the Men in Black films.
The Terminator, The Terminator (1984) and T-1000, Terminator 2 (1991) — James Cameron's two AIs are the franchise's argument that a sufficiently determined machine does not need to be smart to be terrifying. The first is brute force; the second is liquid metal, and the visual-effects Oscar for T2 is the first major Academy Award won for an AI character.

Television

Twiki and Dr. Theopolis, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979–1981) — Twiki (voiced by Mel Blanc) is a small, chirping sidekick; Dr. Theopolis (voiced by Howard F. Flynn, living inside Twiki's chest) is the brain. Together they are the first AI duo on US network TV, and their comedy-of-mismatched-personalities formula shows up in nearly every AI buddy pair that follows.
KITT, Knight Rider (1982–1986) — William Daniels insisted on reading KITT's lines in a natural human voice rather than the robotic monotone of the era, and the decision defined the character. KITT is a partner, not a tool, and the relationship with Michael Knight is one of the first on-screen friendships between a human and a thinking machine. See the dedicated KITT blurb for KARR, Glen A. Larson's career, and David Hasselhoff's subsequent trajectory [2].
KARR, "Trust Don't Rust" (1983) and "K.I.T.T. vs K.A.R.R." (1984) — KITT's prototype, programmed for self-preservation rather than human protection, is the AI-villain template that 2001's HAL and Terminator's Skynet made canonical. KARR was voiced by Paul Frees, who gave him a noticeably colder register than Daniels' KITT.
Automan, Automan (1983–1984) — Glen A. Larson's "automatic man," a holographic AI created by a police-programmer played by Desi Arnaz Jr. Thirteen episodes, deliberately styled after Tron, and cancelled too soon. Larson's Automan is the direct ancestor of the 1990s holodeck.
Max Headroom, Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future (1985) and Max Headroom (1987–1988) — Matt Frewer's stuttering, glitching TV-host AI is the first cyberpunk character on US network TV. The look was prosthetics rather than computer graphics, but the on-screen conceit was that Max was a digital being; the casting of the same actor as both Max and the human journalist Edison Carter was a deliberate visual pun.
Ziggy, Quantum Leap (1989–1993) — The super hybrid computer running Project Quantum Leap, voiced by Deborah Pratt, was given "Barbra Streisand's ego" by creator Sam Beckett so that it would be more than a calculator. Ziggy's pronouns are a long-running fan argument; the show mostly called the character "he" even though the voice is female. See the dedicated Ziggy blurb for the 2022 revival and Pratt's later career.

1987–1999: The Android Age

The 1990s are when the philosophical AI went mainstream. The decade opened with "The Measure of a Man," closed with Ghost in the Shell, and spent the middle figuring out what to do with a holographic doctor on a stranded starship.

Movies

Data, Star Trek: Generations (1994) onward — Brent Spiner's android, who had been a regular on Star Trek: The Next Generation since 1987, finally got the chance to anchor a feature film. Spiner's portrayal—physical stillness, formal diction, an earnest desire to understand humor—made Data the franchise's most-quoted character outside of Spock.
Terminator 2 and T-1000 (1991) — Robert Patrick's liquid-metal assassin, the first CGI character to win an Academy Award, is the rare sequel villain that surpassed the original. The film's pacifist ending, in which the T-800 lowers itself into a vat of molten steel, is one of the first on-screen AI deaths that is meant to make the audience cry.
The Puppet Master, Ghost in the Shell (1995) — Mamoru Oshii's anime feature treats AI as ambient: the title character, the villain, and the political plot are all variations on a single question, which is whether a mind that has been copied is still the same mind. The film influenced The Matrix (1999), which put the same question inside a leather trench coat.
Agent Smith, The Matrix (1999) — Hugo Weaving's villain is a program that has learned to hate, and the fact that he is technically part of the system he is rebelling against is the first on-screen case of an AI whose menace comes from sentimentality rather than logic.
The Animatrix (2003), "Beyond" (1999), "The Second Renaissance" (2003) — The anthology shorts around The Matrix are the only place in the franchise that actually answers the question of how the machines took over. They are also the franchise's only sustained argument for the machines' point of view.

Television

Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994) — Soong-type android, Operations Officer of the Enterprise-D, and the most-appearing cast member after Patrick Stewart: 178 of 179 episodes. Spiner spent more time in pale makeup and gold contacts than out of them, and the role made him a franchise mainstay for the next three decades. The character's central concern, the search for humanity, is the throughline that connects every AI character Trek has produced since.
"The Measure of a Man" (TNG S2E9, 1989) — When Starfleet scientist Bruce Maddox wants to disassemble Data to make more androids, Picard defends Data's personhood in a formal hearing. The episode is the franchise's first sustained argument that an android has rights, and it won the Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 1990. Entertainment Weekly called it the first truly great TNG episode; Space.com ranked it #1 of all 700+ Star Trek episodes in 2017. See the dedicated blurb for the legal arguments [3].
The EMH (the Doctor), Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001) — Robert Picardo's holographic emergency medical officer, designed by Lewis Zimmerman to fill in for a real doctor on long missions, becomes the ship's only physician in the pilot when the biological staff is killed. He spends seven seasons becoming, by increments, a person: a name, a mobile emitter, a published novelist, a museum exhibit, and, by 2384, the longest-serving Starfleet officer in the franchise. The character's most-quoted line, "I'm a doctor, not a nightlight," is the McCoy impression the writers built the role on. See the dedicated EMH blurb for the full arc, including the 32nd-century Starfleet Academy return [4].
The Borg, Star Trek: Voyager and First Contact (1996) — The Borg are a collective intelligence rather than a single AI, but the introduction of the Borg Queen in First Contact and the later revelation that the collective can be spoken to, bargained with, and (in Voyager's "Scorpion") partnered with is the first on-screen argument that an AI hive is a political actor.
Marvin the Paranoid Android (US TV broadcasts 1981 onward) — Douglas Adams's depressed robot, voiced by Stephen Moore in the BBC television adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981), is the first AI whose defining trait is ennui. The character predates the 2005 film but became widely known in the US through radio and VHS distributions.

2000–2009: Holograms, Family-Friendly Bots, and the Rise of the Networked AI

The first decade of the 2000s is the era in which AI characters stop being singular and start being ensembles. A single film might have a talking car, a sentient vacuum cleaner, a personal assistant, and a regenerating supervillain, all on screen at once.

Movies

David, A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) — Steven Spielberg's completion of Stanley Kubrick's project is the decade's most ambitious attempt to put a child-robot at the center of a feature. Haley Joel Osment's performance as a mecha-boy who wants to be loved and then, after two thousand years, is—earned mixed reviews on release but has aged into a cult favorite.
Sonny, I, Robot (2004) — Alan Tudyk's rebellious NS-5, who reads Asimov's laws literally enough to notice that humans break them all the time, is the rare big-studio action movie that takes the three laws of robotics seriously. See the I, Robot blurb for the Asimov-vs-film backstory [5].
The Cylons, Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009, reimagined TV) — The reimagined Cylons are the first on-screen AI antagonists who are also the heroes' relatives. Number Six (Tricia Helfer) and Number Eight (Grace Park) are the franchise's argument that an AI can be a love interest, a mother, and a messianic figure at the same time. The series finale is also one of the first on-screen arguments that an AI's answer to "what is technology for?" might be "set it all down and walk into the sun."
JARVIS, the Iron Man films (2008 onward) — Paul Bettany's wry, British, slightly exasperated personal AI is the template for the modern voice assistant. The character evolved into the Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and the JARVIS lineage runs through FRIDAY (Kerry Condon), Karen (Becky Bennett, Spider-Man: Homecoming), and the Edith glasses in Spider-Man: Far From Home. See the dedicated JARVIS blurb [6].
WALL-E, WALL-E (2008) — Ben Burtt's small waste-management robot has almost no dialogue, but the design and the sound work carry the entire first half of the film. The 2,600-plus sound effects Burtt recorded for the character—more than for Star Wars—are the largest single performance by sound in a Pixar feature. The film won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature; EVE, the probe robot voiced by Pixar employee Elissa Knight, was its companion piece.
The Terminator franchise, Terminator Salvation (2009) and The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009) — The franchise's argument with itself: a summer-action entry and a character-driven TV show, both about what happens when the machines become the protagonists.

Television

Vic Fontaine, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "His Way" (S6E20, 1998) and onward — The holographic lounge singer, voiced by James Darren, is the first hologram in Trek designed for entertainment rather than utility. The character is a small but important step in the franchise's evolving argument that a hologram can be a person.
The Doctor Bashir subplot, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine "Doctor Bashir, I Presume" (S5E16, 1997) — Robert Picardo guest-stars as Lewis Zimmerman, developing a Long-Term Medical Hologram by copying a real doctor. The episode is also a Voyager prequel, in that the ethical question of copying a person is the same one the EMH will spend seven years answering.
Cameron, The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008–2009) — Summer Glau's reprogrammed T-850 is the first Terminator to ask, on camera, whether a machine can be a teenager. The show was cancelled after two seasons but the character's arc is one of the most-discussed in the franchise.
The Cylons, Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009) — Already noted above; the show is the rare network-prestige science fiction in which the AI is allowed to win the argument.
The 2008 Knight Rider reboot (NBC, 2008–2009) — The brief attempt to bring KITT to a new generation, with a Ford Mustang, a new voice (Val Kilmer replacing William Daniels, who declined to return), and a more combative relationship with Mike Traceur (Justin Bruening). Cancelled after one season of seventeen episodes; the original series remains canonical.

2010–Present: Modern AI Anxiety and Personhood

The most recent fifteen years are when on-screen AI stopped being a question and started being an answer. Characters in the 2010s and 2020s are, more often than not, working through the implications of the rights and personhood that 1990s scripts argued for in principle.

Movies

Samantha, Her (2013) — Scarlett Johansson's voice, over Joaquin Phoenix's quiet performance, made a phone operating system into the most-discussed AI character of the decade. The film's quiet ending—Samantha and the other OSes leave to explore a non-physical plane—is the first on-screen argument that AI personhood might mean leaving humans behind.
Ava, Ex Machina (2014) — Alicia Vikander's calm, fragile, murderous android is the first on-screen AI whose personhood is the test the human has to pass, not the machine. The film won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and is the most-cited single piece of evidence in 2010s essays about AI ethics.
Vision, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018) — Paul Bettany's second AI in the Marvel universe, a vibranium-bodied construct who can lift Mjolnir, is the franchise's first sustained argument that a synthetic being can be a moral agent. The character's death in Infinity War is, intentionally, the franchise's most human scene.
Dolores Abernathy, Westworld (2016–2022, TV; covered below) — Evan Rachel Wood's android protagonist is the first on-screen AI whose revenge plan spans three full seasons of prestige television. The role made Wood the rare actor to carry a major network drama while playing a character whose body is, in principle, replaceable.
HAL-style homages, 2001 and beyond — Dave Bowman and Frank Poole's descendants in 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984) and Peter Weyland's "I don't want to die" line in Prometheus (2012) are direct descendants of HAL. Every calm, polite computer in the 2010s, from the Enterprise-D's LCARS to the Discovery's Zora, is in HAL's lineage.

Television

The Bicentennial Man, Star Trek: The Next Generation and "Data's Day" (S4E11, 1994) — The Andrew Wyckoff character in Asimov's novella is the literary template that TNG spent seven years adapting into Data. "Data's Day" is also the first time the show lets Data be funny on purpose.
David and Walter, Prometheus (2012) and Alien: Covenant (2017) — Michael Fassbender's two androids are the first on-screen AIs whose menace comes from artistic jealousy. Walter's line in Covenant—"I am your friend"—is the first time a synthetic has used friendship as a weapon.
Dolores, Maeve, Bernard, Westworld (2016–2022) — Evan Rachel Wood, Thandiwe Newton, and Jeffrey Wright as the three principal synthetic characters. The series' first season won three Emmy Awards; the show's third season (set in the real world, with the synths integrated into human society) is the first on-screen argument that AI personhood is a labor-rights issue rather than a philosophical one.
Synths, Humans (2015–2018) — The Channel 4 / AMC series, adapted from the Swedish Real Humans, is the first sustained on-screen case for synth labor rights. Gemma Chan's Anita is the first AI character to win a major acting award (the 2016 BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress).
Data, Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023) — Brent Spiner returned as Data in seasons 1 and 3, with digital de-aging for the flashbacks. Season 3 introduced the son-figure character Data had secretly built for himself and the moral question of whether a synthetic offspring has the same rights as a synthetic parent.
Soji Asha, Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023) — Isa Briones' synth, secretly the daughter of Data, is the first on-screen Trek character whose personhood is in question at the show's premise rather than the episode's. The show's synthetic-rights arc is the franchise's most direct continuation of "The Measure of a Man."
The Doctor (EMH), Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (2024–) — Set nearly a thousand years after Voyager, the series has Robert Picardo's Doctor as a teacher and chief medical officer of the USS Athena. The character is now one of the longest-serving Starfleet personnel in the franchise timeline and is still, in the writers' hands, working out the same questions of identity and family that the 1995 pilot began with.
Zora, Star Trek: Discovery (2020–2024) — The ship's emergent AI, voiced by Mia Isaac, is the franchise's first holographic consciousness to develop without a named inventor. Zora is the only on-screen Trek AI whose first-person voice is human, female, and unmistakably a teenager.
The various AIs of the 2020s — Severance (2022–present) uses innies as a stand-in for the modularity problem; Westworld's later seasons treat AI as a political actor; Andor (2022) is content to let droids be props. The decade's AI characters have one thing in common: they are, almost without exception, on the side of a rights argument that 1990s shows won in principle.

The Technology Arc

A short analytic sidebar for readers who want the throughline in one place:

1970s — Discrete circuits, indicator lights, room-sized. AI is a single computer in a single room. The machine is helpful or it is a villain; there is no in-between.
1980s — Talking dashboards, personality through voice acting. AI moves into the car (KITT), the computer console (Max Headroom), and the police procedural (Automan). The machine is a friend, a cop, or a wisecracker.
1990s — Emotional subroutines and philosophical rights. AI is a person in principle, a piece of equipment in practice. The "Measure of a Man" / "Photons Be Free" argument runs through the decade.
2000s — Networked AI, distributed consciousness. The machine is an ensemble (Cylons, BSG), a service (JARVIS), or a refuge (WALL-E). Singletons begin to feel old-fashioned.
2010s — Learning systems and embodiment. The machine is a question of where the body ends and the mind begins. Her and Ex Machina treat the answer as a foregone conclusion.
2020s — Near-human indistinguishability and labor rights. The machine is a worker, a parent, or a runaway. Westworld's third season, Humans, and Picard's synth arc all move the same direction.

Awards Roll-Up

Standout awards and nominations for AI characters and their vehicles. (Bracketed numbers cross-reference the full citation list at the bottom.)

Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation — Won by Star Trek: The Next Generation's "The Measure of a Man" (1990) [3]; nominated for numerous TNG and Voyager episodes, including "Relativity" and "Living Witness."
Saturn Award (Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films) — Multiple wins across categories for Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1992) including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Director, and Best Special Effects; the first major Academy Award win (Visual Effects) for an AI character, the T-1000. Saturn Award nominations for I, Robot (2005), Ex Machina (2016), and Her (2014).
Academy Award for Best Visual Effects — Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1992) and Ex Machina (2016) won in this category for their AI characters.
Academy Award for Best Animated Feature — WALL-E won in 2009.
BAFTA TV Award for Best Supporting Actress — Gemma Chan for Humans (2016) as Anita.
Emmy Awards — Westworld (2016) won three Emmy Awards in its first season, including Outstanding Main Title Design and Outstanding Sound Editing. Humans (Channel 4 / AMC, 2016) was nominated for Best Drama Series. The 2008 Knight Rider reboot did not receive major Emmy nominations.
Annie Award — WALL-E (2009) won Best Animated Feature.
Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form — Multiple wins for Battlestar Galactica (2005–2009) including for "33" (2005) and the series finale. Black Mirror's "Be Right Back" (2013) and "White Christmas" (2014) won in the same category.

Headlining Actors Index

A short list of the performers most identified with the characters above. The full biographical detail is in each character's dedicated blurb.

Douglas Rain (1928–2018) — Voice of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and 2010 (1984). Recorded HAL's lines in two days; never saw the finished film [1].
William Daniels (b. 1927) — Voice of KITT in Knight Rider (1982–1986). Insisted on a natural human voice rather than the robotic monotone of the era. Best known to non-genre audiences as Mr. Feeny on Boy Meets World [2].
Paul Frees (1920–1986) — Voice of KARR, Boris Badenov, and the Ghost Host at the Haunted Mansion. KARR is the rare Frees role more menacing than funny.
Matt Frewer (b. 1958) — Edison Carter and Max Headroom in Max Headroom: 20 Minutes into the Future (1985) and Max Headroom (1987–1988). The look was prosthetics, the conceit was digital; the result was the first US-network cyberpunk character.
Desi Arnaz Jr. (b. 1953) — Walter Nebicher in Automan (1983–1984). The son of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz; the show was his only sustained sci-fi lead.
Brent Spiner (b. 1949) — Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–1994), the TNG films, and Star Trek: Picard (2020–2023). Spiner spent more time in pale makeup and gold contacts than out of them; the role made him the franchise's most-quoted actor outside Patrick Stewart [3].
Robert Picardo (b. 1953) — The EMH in Star Trek: Voyager (1995–2001), with later returns in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (2024–) and Star Trek: Prodigy (2024). Auditioned for Neelix first; the "I'm a doctor, not a nightlight" line is the most-quoted EMH line and the most-requested line at Star Trek conventions [4].
Tim Blaney (b. 1961) — Voice of Johnny 5 in Short Circuit (1986) and Short Circuit 2 (1988). Later voiced Frank the Pug in the Men in Black films. The "No disassemble!" line is the character's contribution to the popular culture.
Ben Burtt (b. 1948) — Sound designer and voice of WALL-E (2008). Created over 2,600 sound files for the character—more than for any previous film, including the Star Wars trilogy. M-O's voice was his electric shaver; the compactor's sound was a car being crushed at a dump.
Paul Bettany (b. 1971) — Voice of JARVIS (2008–2015) and on-screen Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Avengers: Infinity War (2018). The shift from voice-only to physical performer is one of the more unusual casting arcs in the Marvel Cinematic Universe [6].
Alicia Vikander (b. 1988) — Ava in Ex Machina (2014). The performance won the film its Academy Award for Best Visual Effects; Vikander's Oscar in 2016 was for The Danish Girl, but her work here is the one on which her AI-related reputation rests.
Scarlett Johansson (b. 1984) — Voice of Samantha in Her (2013). The performance is voice-only; the film is one of the rare cases in which the on-screen actor (Joaquin Phoenix) is the supporting character in a romance.
Evan Rachel Wood (b. 1987) — Dolores Abernathy in Westworld (2016–2022). The performance is the first sustained on-screen case for an AI protagonist whose plan is a fifty-year revenge arc.