There are tons of iconic examples of evil technology throughout sci-fi horror and beyond. HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey might be the classic example. Is there anything more terrifying than a glowing red light that watches your every move? Like many similar concepts, this one can be traced all the way back to the Gothic era with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
As technology becomes more and more prevalent in our lives, this theme has evolved. New stories abandon the idea that technology and humans are separate and instead explore what happens when the two mix. Ideas like surveillance, cybernetics, and the Internet are now horror mainstays, and their relevance only ratchets up the terror.