It makes a nonspecialist think about Asimov’s robots, Skynet or some such. Which not what the most people in the field works on, but it is and always was used in marketing, when they need to oversell something as “smart” or “intelligent” or superior to a human expert. It’s not the first time the related tech is being overhyped, is it? I still have a book somewhere about how to write an expert system in Basic, because, obviously, everyone needs an expert system everywhere, but not everyone can afford a Lisp Machine.

Well, I see no problem with a gf hating the NPC behavior in videogames. Everyone does.

And maybe it’s the people in the field who shoud be more specific and avoid using such a vague and misleading term to describe their work. 🤷

It’s a bit strange not to see Arthur Machen mentioned. It might be a silly question, but have you read “The White People”? It’s what “The Twisted One” builds upon. Cotgrave, Ambrose, The Green Book – all that comes straight from Machen’s story. I do not know, if you are going to like it, it’s being written more than a century ago… but if you do, Machen has more like this.