So, I'm playing Stellaris as a materialist empire. I didn't go for the Synthetic ascension path, but for the biological one. The idea was, to use my bio-pops for research and other high-quality tasks, while my robots do the worker jobs and manial labour – without affecting factions or using up consumer goods.
I didn't research the Synthetics tech in fear of AI rebellion, as my (still droids) are not affected by AI rights. The AI rebellion event popped nonetheless, probably due to another empire researching the dangerous tech. Since I didn't have any synths, I gave Citizen rights to the AI without it changing anything but preventing the rebellion.
Now I have a problem. I would like to research the Synthetics tech for the extra ressource output, but I don't want to give them Citizen rights, which means, I have to change AI rights back to Servitude. Will this trigger AI rebellion or will it have no effect at all, since I don't have any synthetics yet?
Best Answer
Each machine uprising is independent and can happen only once per empire. You will get a warning before the AI rebellion and most likely, you'll have a chance to prevent it:
At first, you'll start noticing some strange events, some of them even beneficial:
Computer overclocking (bonus to research),
production quota surplus
Station system malfunction
AI suicide
Sensor array power surge (extra research)
Combat control misfire (loss of ships)
Robot asking questions "Does this unit have a soul?"
Robots meeting in secret
Robots insisting that part of the planet is "too dangerous for organics"
Additional robots build without permission (extra population)
When this starts happening, you'll know that you are on the path to the rebellion. You can stop it at any time by giving synthetics citizen rights. There is also a chance, that the "Hotfix" event will occur:
If you'd apply the hotfix, you no longer have to worry about the rebellion, otherwise: