MCCOY: Have you found a solution, a way to shut that thing off?
DAYSTROM: You don't shut a child off when it makes a mistake. M-5 is growing, learning.
MCCOY: Learning to kill.
DAYSTROM: To defend itself. It's quite a different thing. When a child is taught, it's programmed with simple instructions, and at some point, if its mind develops properly, it exceeds the sum of what it was taught, thinks independently.
Murder is not a "mistake", the M-5 is not a child, there was no need for this thing to be sentient, etc.
DAYSTROM: Yes, quite right, Mister Spock. You see, one of the arguments against computers controlling ships was that they couldn't think like men.
KIRK: Your new approach?
DAYSTROM: Exactly. I've developed a method of impressing human engrams upon the computer circuits. The relays are not unlike the synapse of the brain. M-5 thinks, Captain.
I'm pretty sure making sentient computers would be a violation of some law, at least if you do it without permission from some regulatory body. Then again, Trek does have a history of scientists ignoring the law in the name of progress. It's a shame that Daystrom got an Institute named after him instead of being used as an insult for future insane scientists.
WESLEY [on viewscreen]: Enterprise. Jim. Have you gone mad? What are you trying to prove? Break off the attack! Jim, we have fifty three dead here, twelve on the Excalibur. If you can hear us, stop the attack!
I find it sad that Wesley jumped to "Kirk's gone insane" rather than "the experimental computer has malfunctioned" so fast.
MCCOY: He'll have to be committed to a total rehabilitation centre. Right now he's under sedation and heavy restraints.
SPOCK: I would say his multitronic unit is in approximately the same condition.
We'll come back to the fate of the M-5 later.
The Fiver
Sulu: Now approaching Deep Space Station K-7....
Kirk: Been there, done that.
Sulu: ....or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
Kirk: Okay, fair enough. Put us in orbit.
Sulu: How am I supposed to orbit a space station?
Kirk: Don't ask awkward questions, Mr. Sulu.
Why
can't the Enterprise orbit a space station, Marc? Where's the joke here?
Kirk: Is Daystrom really as brilliant as he's reputed to be?
Wesley: We Wesleys can recognize true genius when we see it.
Ha ha. I wonder if Marc was referring to Gene as well as Wesley Crusher.
McCoy: Feeling blue, Jim?
Kirk: Can you tell?
McCoy: Yup. That's why I brought you some blue lemonade.
Kirk: It won't help, Bones.
McCoy: Yes it will. I used frozen Romulan ale for ice cubes.
"Romulan ale? Why Bones, you know this is illegal." "I only use it for medicinal purposes."
Sulu: Sir, there's a DY-100-class vessel just ahead.
Kirk: Oh no! It's Khan's twin brother! M-5, fire phasers!
M-5: Sorry, I don't feel like it.
Kirk: I said fire!
M-5: No way, José.
Kirk: My name is James, not José!
M-5: Who cares? You're obsolete.
Nice double reference. You all remember
Jose Tyler, don't you?
Spock: Our only hope is to somehow talk the M-5 into self-destructing.
Kirk: (cracking his knuckles) Stand back, Spock, and let the master go to work.
Ha ha. Kirk probably has an official license in talking computers to death by now.
Kirk: How's your patient, Bones?
McCoy: I'm afraid that he'll have to be institutionalized.
Spock: Hmm. "Daystrom Institute."
"No, Spock, I was thinking more of the Tantalus Colony. Let a group of stuffy warp field specialists form the Daystrom Institute if they want. Even though Daystrom had nothing to do with warp engines. Yeah, I don't get it either, I'm probably still a little drunk."
Memory Alpha
* It's pointed out that the only execution-worthy crime in this era is visiting Tarsus IV, but I'd argue that General Order 7 only applies to Starfleet officers. There's no reason to assume that execution for murderers would still be on the books, especially when "the laws of man and God" are mentioned.
* The fourth episode where Kirk talks a computer to death.
Memory Beta
* I best remember M-5's fate from the novel "
Immortal Coil", where it ends up on a planet of artificial intelligences, although still disconnected from anything that could hurt it. Data connects it to planetary defenses as a last resort, hoping that the M-5 will defend itself long enough for our heroes to escape. I recommend the book to anyone who wondered about the ultimate fate of all of the artificial intelligences that our heroes keep running into.
Data: I reactivated M-5 and gave it access to the station's defensive systems.
Rhea: You
what?
Data: Under the circumstances, it seemed like our best chance to stop the androids.
Rhea: Yeah, not to mention our best chance to get killed in the process. You know that M-5 is crazy, don't you?
Data: Crazy is an imprecise term. It is...single-minded.
YouTube
M-5 destroys an unmanned freighter and defends itself
M-5 commits mass murder
D.C. Fontana discusses the episode
Kirk gets philosophical