Maybe a good rule of thumb is that the intelligence of the AI should be directly proportional to the complexity of gameplay. The more options in play available to the player, the smarter the AI. Of course, many games offer a sliding scale in the form of difficulty settings, but more often than not, these offer little more than enemies with greater hit points and fewer opportunities to recharge health. Hardly the stuff of Asimov's dreams.

But there is another factor to take into consideration. If we suddenly experienced a leap in computational power that led to our games spontaneously experiencing sentience, which games would we most need to worry about escaping their hardware confines and leaking into the 'Net? Let's base this on bloodthirstiness, scariness, and sheer love of evil.

Sinistar
For complete terror, you can't beat the Big Robot Skull. Sinistar was many gamers's first experience with a game's voice chip. When you approached the cabinet for the first time and dropped in your quarter and heard Sinistar's overwhelmingly loud, booming voice bellow "RUN, COWARD!" you knew you were in for the fight of your life. Let us pray he never makes it into reality.

GlaDOS
The almost innocent evil of GlaDOS is a perfect mirror to the mad scientist archetype. "I was just trying to make the world better through science! How could I have foreseen the destruction of everything we know?" If GlaDOS were running the world, it would be a never-ending series of horriffic "experiments" on mankind, akin to the classic Harlan Ellison story "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream". And don't even get me started on the kind of mind-bending accidents possible with portal technology.

Alpha Centauri
The only foray into space made by the guys behind Civilization, Alpha Centauri was hard. It always seemed that the AI was one step ahead, quicker to build defense, able to exploit resources more efficiently, and more prepared to attack with a varied force. Clearly, the AI was designed for complete worldwide domination. We'd be better off outfitting ourselves with monk's robes and taking to living in caves than expect to compete against this tactical titan.

Should we expect the AI-led apocalypse in our lifetime? We're closer to the Terminator future than ever, but there's no point in worrying about it. Instead, let's just concentrate on keeping our single-player skills up to snuff; they might come in handy sooner than we expect. Which game's AI would you hate to go up against in real life? Leave your comments!