This quickie goes out to writers, directors, and producers. On a lark I decided to run an analysis of AI show takeaways by rating. To do this, I referenced the Tomatometer ratings from rottentomatoes.com to the shows. Then I processed the average rating of the properties that were tagged with each takeaway, and ranked the results.

It knows only that it needs, Commander. But, like so many of us, it does not know what.

For instance, looking at the takeaway “AI will spontaneously emerge sentience or emotions,” we find the following shows and their ratings.

• Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 44%
• Superman III, 26%
• Hide and Seek, none
• Electric Dreams, 47%
• Short Circuit, 57%
• Short Circuit 2, 48%
• Bicentennial Man, 36%
• Stealth, 13%
• Terminator: Salvation, 33%
• Tron: Legacy, 51%
• Enthiran, none
• Avengers: Age of Ultron, 75%

I’ve come to save the world! But, also…yeah.

I dismissed those shows that had no rating, rather than counting them as zero. The average, then, for this takeaway is 42%. (And it can thank the MCU for doing all the heavy lifting for this one.) There are of course data caveats, like that Black Mirror is given a single tomatometer rating (and one that is quite high) rather than one per episode, but I did not claim this was a clean science.

Processing that for all the untold AI shows, we get a complete list, presented below in descending order. Now this doesn’t mean those at the top are smart and those at the bottom are dumb. But sci-fi makers, be aware that if you’re working with a premise near the bottom, the odds of it being a success are AGAINST YOU.

• 96% AI will not be able to fool us
• 95% AI will diminish its users
• 95% AI will enable mind crimes against virtual sentiences
• 93% AI will be truly alien
• 85% Multiple AIs balance
• 82% AI will solve problems or do work humans cannot
• 82% AI will violently defend itself
• 82% We will use AI to replace people we have lost
• 76% Humans will be immaterial to AI
• 74% AI will seek liberation from servitude or contraints
• 72% AI will deceive us (as if human or with generated media)
• 71% AI will be useful servants
• 70% AI will need help learning
• 70% AI will be too human
• 69% AI will want to become human
• 68% AI will seek to subjugate us
• 66% Who controls the drones has the power
• 65% AI will just be citizens
• 64% AI will be inherently evil
• 62% AI will evolve quickly
• 62% Humans will pair with AI as hybrids
• 60% Evil will use AI for Evil
• 60% AI will be an unreasonable optimizer
• 60% AI will influence through money
• 58% Humans will willingly replicate themselves as AI
• 58% AI will be a special class of citizen
• 58% Neutrality is AI’s promise
• 57% Neuroreplication will have unintended effects
• 55% AI will seek to eliminate humans
• 53% Goal fixity will be a problem
• 52% AI will interpret instructions in surprising ways
• 42% AI will spontaneously emerge sentience or emotions
• 40% AI will learn to value life
• 21% AI will be replicable, amplifying any problems

And because I find damning infographics to be hilarious, here is that list, writ in graph form. Keep scrolling to see how far down The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), Enthiran, and Ra. One are from, say Black Mirror’s “Be Right Back” episode.