Trope-a-Day: Genie in the Machine

Genie in the Machine: The classic example here is the classic cornucopia machine (available in all good Imperial appliance stores or catalogs!) with its friendly, helpful artificial intelligence to help you find the right tools for what you want to do, and then build them for you…

…despite the essential benignity of the device, however, people still manage to get themselves into trouble with them, because they’ll help you to do what you want to do.  They expect you, however, to already know if what you want to do is stupid, illegal, or merely incredibly dangerous.

It’s astonishing how many civilizations let people run around without having figured that out.