I suspect if the AI's plan hadn't involved the death of a number of innocents in order to execute it's attack on the US executive then the audience may have actually sympathised with it.

The ending I remember being a bit disjointed to the point where the conclusion I reached was that the AI was almost deliberately destroying itself in a dramatic and public way, especially as it had made a big point about civil liberties early on.

[–] Fontasia@feddit.nl 1 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Yeah that is true. I guess I'm also a little shocked that the movie that was so directly critical of the administration at the time (Right down to having a scene in which the President reads Good Night Moon to a classroom.) didn't draw more controversy at the time. But I'm guessing I'm looking through 2026 eyes.

ARIA doesn't directly decide to destroy itself, you might be thinking of Echelon Conspiracy, the Asylum-level Eagle Eye knock off where the AI does choose to delete itself after assessing that it is a risk to human rights.