15

In Avengers: Age of Ultron Tony Stark and Bruce Banner use what seems to be some kind of artificial intelligence bound in the Infinity Stone from Loki's scepter to refine a global peace A.I. that Tony delevoped, who then turns into the evil (or misguided?) Ultron who ultimately wants to eradicate humans from earth and strives for a new cybernetic population on earth.

But in fact during the course of the movie, Tony loads his other existing A.I, JARVIS, into the Vibranium-enhanced cybernetic body that Ultron devised for himself and enhances it with the Mind Stone from the scepter. Yet this time it turns indeed into the perfect being Vision that Ultron should have been all along, devoid of the inhuman attitudes of Ultron.

But I wonder what it is that makes Vision different from Ultron. What is it that gives Ultron his misguided character? Is it just a matter of JARVIS' longer and more humble experience as Tony's assistant? Or is it his lower complexity, does Ultron's larger power drive him mad or does Vision maybe not have as much free will and creativity as Ultron does? Or is it actually the Infinity Stone from the scepter that gives him an utterly evil spirit right away, as we have seen its disruptive effects on the mind in the first Avengers movie (but then again, Vision does employ that stone, too)? Or is it the partly organic body that gives Vision a human facet (yet, I'd doubt Ultron would suddenly have turned sane when put in there)? Why is it that Ultron is a spoiled kid trying to eradicate his creators while Vision seems to be the perfect mind in a perfect body (who's afterall worthy to rule Asgard)?

Improve this question
2
  • 1
    Of course, the AoU stinger implies that Thanos was behind the plot of the movie. Ultron was placed there as smuck bait/a booby trap.
    – cde
    Commented Sep 13, 2015 at 1:33
  • @cde Related: movies.stackexchange.com/q/33792/49.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Sep 13, 2015 at 3:32

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
19

This is all just my personal opinion, which I will eventually back up with quotes.

During one scene we see Tony show a 'live holographic feed' of JARVIS to Bruce. JARVIS has been completely designed by Tony, from the ground up. Every single element of JARVIS has been built, refined and perfected by Tony over (we assume) a large period of time.

Then he shows a live feed of inside the Mind Stone - its larger, more chaotic, more like a human brain then something artificial. Bruce mentions that he sees signals flying around similar to a human brain.

In other words, it seems to be an organic intelligence that we know is manipulative and above all else, dominating. (Hawk-eye)

This is where my opinion comes into it:

Unlike JARVIS, Tony cuts corners with Ultron. It seems like he simply transfers this organic intelligence into a existing peacekeeping intelligence, giving an otherwise 'magical' entity access to our wealth of human history available on the web. And a brand new intelligent being, seeing human history for the first time would almost certainly come to the conclusion that we are evil, destructive and detrimental to the survival of the Earth.

It's the old "I must protect the Earth by destroying the humans who are destroying the Earth" chestnut.

Now that the intelligence of the Mind Stone has been turned into 'data' the Mind Stone exists only in its purest form now. It's been devoid of its previous 'organic intelligence' in other words, its just an empty shell now.

That shell is filled with the 'Perfect' AI creation of JARVIS. Turning JARVIS into a 'organic' intelligent being.

That's just what I think, anyway.

TL;DR: Tony takes the organic intelligence from the Mind Gem and turns it into AI.

JARVIS's AI goes into the empty Mind Gem and it turns it into an organic intelligence.

Improve this answer
5
  • 1
    Yep. A pretty clichéd concept in A.I. fiction, used in stuff from The Terminator to The Matrix: A.I. designed to save the planet decides humans are the ultimate threat to the planet.
    – WakeDemons3
    Commented Apr 23, 2018 at 14:40
  • 1
    @WakeDemons3 well, technically in the Terminator, Skynet became self aware, the Humans wanted to terminate Skynet and Skynet responded by launching nukes. Skynet was self-protecting. The Matrix . . . I'll have to think about that. I Robot might be a good example. I never got that sense from Ultron though. Ultron had a "I'm better than you" thing going and "humans are a pestilence". at least, that's my take.
    – userLTK
    Commented Apr 26, 2018 at 10:01
  • The A.I. in the Matrix was indeed pretty much identical to SkyNet. A man-made technical solution that backfired badly. SkyNet was very quick to act (instantaneous per Terminator 3, not counting development time, which would be hard to estimate anyway, as it involves a recursive future technology input :) ), whereas in the Matrix, the process was much slower (200 years; 1999 - 2199), involving many stepping stones in the process towards the A.I. machines overtaking the physical world and the Matrix being created.
    – Juha Untinen
    Commented Mar 18, 2019 at 13:07
  • To extend @JuhaUntinen's Matrix comment, the machine wars were prefaced by a truce. AI broke free, but it was resolved by giving them their own region to live. Over time, humans sparked conflicts (animosity, mistrust, covert operations, ...) and eventually caused the machines to defend themselves by militarizing their build process, leading to the machine war which destroyed the world. The conflict sparked on both sides but the lore strongly leans towards humans making the first real transgressions.
    – Flater
    Commented Oct 1, 2019 at 7:11
  • The Second Renaissance in Animatrix explains more than what is here!!!
    – ashveli
    Commented Oct 1, 2019 at 7:20
6

The way Ultron sees it, Once you take away all the extraterrestrial threats, Humans are the ones causing all the ruckus.

In the moment that Ultron boots up, we see him scanning through all files, many of which include human destruction. Images & videos of various wars that humanity has fought over the centuries. This causes him to take up an issue against Humanity.

He feels that Earth/Humanity is so corrupted by now that it is beyond reproach/repair. This is why he starts planning an Extinction Level Event. He feels that the only way to save the planet is to start afresh, to start from scratch.

I feel it also plays into the trope of evil AI turning against creators.

Also, one thing to note here is that we currently do not know the source of the Ultron consciousness. If it was built with malicious intent, or built in a time of war, it would hold such extreme solutions.

However, JARVIS has been seeing the earth for a long time. He knows humans, humanity. That is why he says that he is

"...on the side of life. Ultron isn't"

He might not be JARVIS anymore, but his core was built around JARVIS, giving him the benevolent nature.

Improve this answer
1
  • "we currently do not know the source of the Ultron consciousness" The movie specifically points out that the inner workings of the mind stone behave very much like a brain. This scene is used specifically to justify the source of Ultron's non-JARVIS consciousness.
    – Flater
    Commented Oct 1, 2019 at 7:14

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .