I’m sick of AI and artificial "intelligence" that is more plagiaristic and environmentally degrading than intelligent. I’m even more sick of tech billionaires using the warnings in classic sci-fi novels as inspiration instead (see the “torment nexus”), but at least their ideas largely seem to only be resulting in robots that bumble around (expensively) thus far.

I’m also the sort of person who can’t help but humanize a Roomba.

We have plenty of classic sci-fi with sentient machines, and many help us consider the implications of big business and what it really means to be human. Modern stories bring a fresh lens, focusing on our current fears and anxieties, and many also include an intersectional take.

Here are several excellent stories about sympathetic robots—artificial, intelligent, and often quite subversive.

Hank in the South Dakota Sun

Stephanie Kraner, Apex Magazine, November 2021

This is the story that inspired this roundup. Hank is a sentient train, and the story describes how a train might see and understand the world differently than a human would. It contrasts what we think of as humanity to the sort of capitalist ethos that discounts sentience—cold, hard, business decisions. It starts with “Today’s the day that Hank is going to die. I haven’t told him yet, but I have to,” so you know it’s going to be a rough ride. If you’re anything like me, be prepared for tears as you read this one.

Sorry, Not Sorry

Vivian Chou, Interstellar Flight Magazine, August 2024

Brilliant and brutal, this story eviscerates the concept of so-called “sex bots” through the  story of a near-future cyborg, echoing the history and present of the world’s expectations for Chinese women. It’s in the “good for her” family of media, for sure. Note the content warnings for sexist and racist language, mentions of rape, and enslavement.

(Psst!: Vivian Chou also had a story published with Haven last year, “Restaurant Space for Lease” that—while lighter in content—also has themes of East Asian culture and anti-capitalism.)

What the Humans Call Heartache

Jiksen Cheung, Arsenika, Issue 8, April 2021

I’m not sure if the writer was also visualizing Rosie, the robot maid from The Jetsons with this story, but I certainly was. This little flash piece packs a big punch in terms of its emotionality, humanity (as it were), and prose, asking: what if Rosie had had more free will and desire than she was programmed to?

Robotic Ambitions: Tales of Mechanical Sentience (anthology)

Ed. Lesley Connor and Jason Sizemore, Apex Book Company, October 2023

If any of these stories wet your whistle for more sympathetic robots, I’d recommend this entire anthology. Check it out for future worlds, anti-capitalism, found family, and that special bittersweetness that a sentient machine can hold.

With special mentions to my personal favourites:

●     "The Town Full of Broken Tin Men" by Danny Cherry Jr: like Black Mirror's San Junipero episode meeting post-combat PTSD

●     "A Still Life" by Elliott Wink: a quietly post-apocalyptic piece about a hotel robot still at its job despite the obvious end

●     “Ribbit” by Mona West: the most sentimental of all for me; about an artificial intelligence that looks like a little dog doing palliative care for a little boy

© 2026 Jessica Peter