[Cthulhu_]

They had to add the battery (or, any reason to actually keep them alive) because extermination would otherwise be the obvious choice.

[pavel_lishin]

It's only an obvious choice if you're a psychopath or a sociopath.

The machines are definitively - and canonically! - not.

[fragmede]

that's one opinion of a world driven by machine. But where machines are currently unable to feel compassion or show mercy, an energy optimization algorithm could easily be seen as sociopathic as it separates mother from child for efficiency reasons because an algorithm said it wound be a more optimal arrangement.

[pavel_lishin]

We're still talking about The Matrix, right?