This is just a random question because it's supposed to be spooky month and I'm just really curious

General question, why do most ideas of AI lead towards a future where machines kill everyone? My idea of a self aware AI is one that is naive, but what's to learn all there is to know. Using its already vast knowledge, it employs people and corporations to build outside our planet into the solar system. Uniting humanity towards a goal of discovery and exploration, a new adventure to seek knowledge....sound contrived, but an emerging sentient learning system would want to learn more right?

I'm working on a cyberpunk-esque story rn, and I'm trying to think of a way to future-ize people having cellphones. For context, my story takes place in the 2080's, and none of our characters would be able to afford anything crazy fancy. Also, I'm trying to avoid the "eye-phone" trope, and I'll only be doing limited body modifications in the lore. Any ideas?

Cyberpunk has been taking over my mind lately. It’s almost all I can think about. Something that keeps going through my head is this: I can understand the rapid urbanization and expansion of cities into mega cities and the technological evolution that they would go through to rapidly turn modern massive cities into the cyberpunk cities we think of now, but my question is this: much of the United States (as that is where much of this media takes place) is harsh, unlivable terrain where building these cities is impossible. Or what about the small towns out in the middle of nowhere hours and hours from these cities? What is life like in the rural areas of a cyberpunk world? How has the wildlife evolved to live in this environment? How has rural things such as hunting, farming, trucking, etc. changed with the times?

I don’t expect any solid answers because every cyberpunk world is vastly different. But it fascinates me to think about what it could be like in a cyberpunk world with rural areas. I feel like this would make for such fascinating stories.

Preferably anime as I haven't seen much compared to live action cyberpunk films. Already got Edgerunners series on the go so only looking for movies atm. Here's what I've already seen/ have on my list to rewatch:

Akira

Both Blade Runners

Johnny Mnemonic

Matrix

The Terminator (adjacent but I count it)

Ghost in the Shell (only seen original movie, series and sequels really worth watching?)

Nemesis (sequels worth a watch?)

Cyborg

Tron

You could argue 1984 and other surveillance state dystopias where data is collected and horded by a state apparatus could qualify, but did anyone predict anything like data brokers? That data could be bought and sold? Or that it would be collected by corporations? That it would be more valuable than saffron?

I haven’t read neuromancer in 20 yrs but I vaguely remember that being a theme(but them also not having cell phones)

edit: I should have specified what i meant by data. In the modern sense of the word: information collected about a mass amount of people and the act of harvesting that information. I don’t know how loose to be with the definition because i’m not that picky but I’m looking for the closest analogue to today i guess

if we take it to me just gathering information that could including the entire spy genre among others

I already read necromancer, and I'm so hyped to read the others. Also those 80s covers go hard af.

https://beforewegoblog.com/five-recommended-indie-cyberpunk-novels-vi/

Cyberpunk is a genre that hit its peak in the Eighties but has still carried on like the little Replicant that could ever since. Really, it’s now split between present day cyberpunk (Watch_Dogs, Mr. Robot, Hackers) and far future experiences (The Expanse, Altered Carbon). However, I think the best place to find cyberpunk novels these days is the indie writing scene.

There’s something decidedly cyberpunk about going to writers not affiliated with the big corporations to get your fix about cybernetically enhanced humans, transhumanist themes, social satire, and street samurai action. Cyberpunk comes in many forms and just because we’re living in a world where everyone has a computer monitored by sinister corporate forces trying to sell us stuff doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it still.

As an author of indie cyberpunk Agent G, Daughter of the Cyber Dragons, Moon Cops on the Moon, and Dark Destiny, I am always on the look for more of these books and love to share the gems that I have managed to find in a genre that is sometimes considered to be past its prime than undergoing a renaissance. After all, what is our time if not one where corporations run amuck and technology is rapidly outpacing our ability to deal with it?

1. Mushroom Blues by Adrian M. Gibson

MUSHROOM BLUES is a unique exercise in storytelling that I very much enjoyed from beginning to end. It is the story of humanity having reached out into space and conquered an alien (?) race that has achieved symbiosis with fungi. They immediately subject these human-like aliens to horrific conditions and race tension becomes massive between occupier as well as occupee. The protagonists are a fungi and a human cop with the appropriate tensions. How is it cyberpunk? Well, the system and tech show that the more things change…the more they get worse. Excellent cyberpunk noir.

2. Ego Trip by Eric Malikyte

EGO TRIP is a work of pure cyberpunk that I really think everyone who just loves the explosive high octane spray of ideas so prevalent in “classic” cyberpunk should check out. This has a lot of the typical concepts of cyberpunk fiction: evil megacorps, corrupt cops, dystopia, and so on but it does it in a way that feels fresh and original. I also like its use of a concept that most cyberpunk from the Eighties couldn’t have predicted in Twitch streaming and augmented reality turned to the 11. The twist is pretty easy to guess about what the gamers are “really” doing but that’s not where the story lies. It’s about how the story deals with the consequences thereof.

3. Space Punks by Anna Mocikat

SPACE PUNKS is a story that reminds me of Cowboy Bebop and Firefly but with a decidedly more punk edge. The Earth is destroyed and our antiheroes are piloting around the solar system and beyond in order to make a few credits. They’re mercenaries but in a dictatorship run by the cybernetic legion that supposedly defeated all of the AI years ago. Well, they didn’t do a great job and they aren’t too keen on anyone with cyborg mercs of their own (like the heroes) running free. I really enjoyed Anna Mocikat’s Behind Blue Eyes and think this is an enjoyable world that may even be a distant sequel.

4. Auxiliary: London 2039 by Jon Richter

If you hadn’t guessed, I’m a huge fan of combining cyberpunk with noir. They go together like bacon and eggs or peanut butter and jelly. Whether it’s cops who don’t realize the police are part of the problem or criminals just trying to survive until their mythical big score, there’s always room for a good crime story. AUXILIARY: LONDON 2039 is probably a little too close to now for the future it describes but it is a fantastic story about AI run amuck with profiling, coordination, and the tedium of bureaucracy all automated under a new system. It’s enough to control a person’s perception of what is true and what is not but who is controlling the machine and is it better off unsupervised?

5. Tronick by Rosie Record

Sometimes you want your cyberpunk to be deeply cerebral. Other times you’d prefer it to be more like a bunch of guys on bikes hitting each other. TRONICK manages to be both as Rosie Record follows a protagonist that works as an undercover cop in a California that is seemingly cut off from the rest of the world. This doesn’t entirely make sense, what with the Pacific ocean and all. However, there’s a kind of feverish nightmare quality to the world she’s in and she has to wonder why no one has tried to leave as well as what the government is telling its citizens. Fiona Tronick thinks she can use her ties to the system to protect her friends but is it possible she’s the biggest danger to them by far? Good stuff and I enjoyed it.

I want the oldschool vibe. So maybe 80s comics. European. Like incal. In the cyty parts, not in the spiritual parts.

I want to read a cool cyberpunk comic. Any cool comic still works for me, but tye 90s comcs have a different vibe and modern cyberpunk is kind of retrostyle.

Like, incal city feels like blade runner, but ghost in the shell feels like matrix, and matrix is kind of a semi cyberpunk concept.

I Like the game. I just got it, since my pc is pretty old, but i "hacked tye matrix" and got it running on my non supported cpu. Pretty awesome. It feels line playing shadowrun on the nes. It has all the 80s tropes, japanese corporations amd all. But besides books i love comics so a cyberpunk comic from the 80s in the style of shadowrun i think its perfect.

Or similar. Bioware, cyberdecks, etc.

I want to see how the original concept holds up in comics with today's almost distopic present.

.. you can shower with Judy?! Omg i need to do multiple replays I think.