There are four stereo-typed 'robot' styles seen in the greater universes of SciFi. Some of these are more endearing to us, with 'winning personalities', human characteristics, and almost always, a mind of their own. Many of these Artificial Intelligences share similar features, and, aside from looks, are even built closely.
Multi-presence
Commonly represented as a ships computer, the multi-presence is everywhere within a limited space.
HAL 9000,
Star Trek's Ship's Computer, or
Extant's B.E.N. all easily fall into this category. The multi-presence is often portrayed as cold, calculating, possibly sentient but never truly emotional. In the Star Trek computer, there is never truly a point where the machine moves out of being a voice recognition algorithm - it may get 'hacked' and appear that way but it never truly happens. For others, there is often an underlining angst associated with a multi-presence. The computer has some alternative internal directive that provides the angst and makes the machine seem inexplicable and capable of things it should not be. This angst, and the desire and possibility to actually have a multi-presence drive the popularity of these Artificial Intelligence systems.
Android
The Android, a human representative machine, is by far most widely recognized by the character
Data from Star Trek. Often appearing nearly human, Android's come close to being fully human representative, even down to the point of emotions. Often, emotions are a point of struggle for an android, expressing them, understanding them, and just plain knowing what to do with them. Other examples of Android include:
The Android from Dark Matter,
Ethan Woods from Extant,
C-3PO from Star Wars,
David in Prometheus, Bicentennial Man, A.I, the Terminator, and even
Judy Cooper from K.C. Undercover. Androids can be extremely relate-able, and are often cast as quirky. An alternate portrayal is also common in the cold and distant android, such as in iRobot.
Drone
There are not nearly as many examples of drone's in popular SciFi. Aside from the
Replicator's, these drone types are not usually seen. Extremely difficult to portray as emotional or even intelligent, drones just do not make a good splash on the big screen.
Non-Humanoid
Non-Humanoid robots are probably the most popular of the lot. Throw a plastic container and toilet paper rolls together, add some sound effects and voilà, a robot prop is born. Because of the ease of creation, and the easier audience identification, we see these all over the place. However, there are some of these that draw a distinction of their own, the Sentient Non-humanoid robot.
R2-D2 from Star Wars,
The Robot from Lost In Space, are just two of the sentient forms of these robots. Often extremely quirky, the lack of human physique can make them more difficult to relate to and humor is often a mechanism to draw the viewer into the character.
