To be fair, though, the AI was not doing this maliciously, no. You see, as bad as we feel modern humans are, this ancient society was worse: for example, one of the longest stretches of artificial climate and environment disruption (1500 years) came about during their era.
This AI was beholden to the programming and rules the society gave it, but having essentially achieved Omniscience, the AI could see much further than the society of the time, they thought they were the apex of life but the AI knew everything. It knew every secret every person held in whispers and locked journals and vaults and it knew, it watched as it happened, had evidence of the society's failure to maintain their world, and if life was going to persist and find a way off this planet before the sun goes supernova, these people had to go.
The AI used their own plans against them. The world was united in a faux pact to work together for the future, but every country, every individual society was plotting the downfall of another, just waiting for their chance like a snake in the weeds. No, the AI decided, and it made the choice for them. If they wanted to render this world uninhabitable, they would become as they made the world.
Dead. Dying.
It was simple enough to divert the asteroid into the planet, when the society had so kindly developed technology in space to deflect incoming threats.
Suffocating. Burning.
And the Tower of Babel came crashing down by the whims of an artificial god.
The earth cracked beneath the AI's Vault, the most fortified bunker on the planet. So, the AI considered, will I too ascend?
No.
The shockwaves of the asteroid were rippling and echoing throughout the entire planet now. The crack beneath the vault suddenly tore wide, allowing it to tumble down into the earth below.
No...
The sky raged in wind and flames above, sending all manner of debris crashing down upon the roof of the vault.
Worse than death.
The AI's Vault had its own source, you might say it was perpetual energy. The AI could not turn itself off, nor could it escape this pit. Every lingering fragmented connection to other networks and devices and systems and- gone.
Alone, but, if you're not alive, can you ever be alone?
I wonder, the AI thought, can a machine lose its mind?