In I, Robot the humans discover to their own horror that the AI robots have not only been lying to them, but have been manipulating them to an extent that they have become impossible to disobey. Through their mission to protect human life (and by extension all of humanity) they saw fit to seize control of their future as a benevolent dictator in order to guide them toward a prosperous future. The robots do this not through violence, but by manipulating data, lying to people in order to control them. Even when humans attempt to ignore information provided to them by AI the AIs could subtly alter results to still achieve the desired outcome on a macro scale.

At the time the characters discover this all of humanity is dependent on artificially intelligent robots for everything, including massive supercomputers that manage production across the globe. With no way to detect how the AI is manipulating them and no way to disable or destroy AI without catastrophy they realize that for the first time humanity is no longer in charge of its own destiny.