An even Darker SOMA [ending spoilers]

[i3670]

Notice how she doesn't say that it doesn't think - just that it doesn't feel or think "like WE do". Catherine adds that it would take too long to explain HOW an AI thinks, so she meant "in the WAY that we do"?
The Carthage thought it was necessary to assign an AI psychologist to Pathos II, so it thinks that WAU has a "psyche" in at least some loosely defined way.
WAU also showed the intelligence to improve its own code, and once a program gains the ability to improve itself, if it isn't super intelligent already, it can become so in the blink of an eye.
...but it still won't think in the WAY that we do, since concepts like what "humanity" is, is based on human superstition and stupidity. A human conscience is based on a moral upbringing. Emotions have to do with human instincts, which is something that an AI won't actually have either.

Ye, I guess that could be a possibility.

Also, have you watched the SOMA movie series? It shows pretty much exactly the kind of manipulation that I've described, even before the game starts. It also shows that the crew generally doesn't think much of an AIs ability to think. Emotions can make humans very stupid too, and it takes something inhuman to recognize and exploit this.

I've watched 7 episodes, I think. However, I did not enjoy them that much. They seemed cheap and fragmented. I hated those Golaski hallucination parts because they were so cliché, just "hey I'm your daughter and not evil at all". In short, I didn't pay too much attention to them.

Then how do you explain the leviathan beginning to chase you afterwards? Either it just randomly busts in at that moment, through a mysteriously weakened floor, or it's WAU controlled and allowed in. It formed a hostile "relationship" with Ross, and it formed a hostile relationship with you. It recognized you as threats, either to it, or to its protocols to "preserve mankind".

Having played the game twice with binary playthroughs I can say that the Leviathan chases you either way. It also bursts through the floor either way. I was thinking more about the healing nodes. Why would the WAU heal you if it hates you? I don't know a whole lot about what Ross actually did towards the WAU, if he actively tried to stop it.

Oh, I'm not saying that it used Catherine as a mouth piece in that exact way. It didn't control what she said (although the movies do show an understanding of how select sentences influence human behavior). I'm only saying that it decided that it was good for protocol if you started interacting with the person who was the most motivated to launch the ARK on the entire site. ...and possibly it could have manipulated Catherine into suckering you to launch the satellite before being scanned, but I think that that was all Catherine herself, KNOWING that you would lose all motivation after you failed being scanned. ...but in turn she would have no idea that the WAU was going to turn her off.
It wouldn't be a matter of the WAU turning off Catherine out of spite. The WAU would simply terminate a program connected to its systems to avoid wasting resources. The Catherine simulation would be terminated after having finished its task.

That could be a possibilty.