I remember an older SciFi story that featured these things.
From what I remember, a “berserker” was a robotic space ship that would attack other spacecraft at random-it had some kind of programming that allowed it to do this.
Just what they were supposed to accomplish, I’m not sure.
I remember that these things were considered very dangerous, because you never knew what it might do.
Sorta like a drunk driver.
Fred Saberhagen’s Beserker series?
That’s a long series by Fred Saberhagen.
Kevin Smith’s “Clerks”?
Perhaps what the OP is remembering is that the Berserkers were AIs equipped with a special randomizer that caused them to follow a less-than-100%-perfect battleplan, such randomized strategy being less predictable and therefore actually more effective than a game-theory-perfect strategy.
Actually, in one of the early Berserker stories the ship is defeated by what is essentially a self-working algorithm for winning games that was presented in one of Martin Gardner’s “Mathematical Games” columns in Scientific American. He showed how to use it to develop a method of always winning at Tic Tac Toe. If I recall the Saberhager sory correctly, the pilot of the human ship , knowing he was going to be disabled and not able to pilot his own ship, rigged the system up so his pet could work the algorithm. So, at first, the Berserker ships definitely weren’t random. I don’t recall any randomizer in the stories I read, and I suspect they’re from later stories.
My love for you is like a drunk
Berserker
Would you like to hold my trunk
Berserker
That’s the only Berserker story I’ve read!
The Bersekers could make humans insane for a short period of time, and the pilot had to kill time for another Earth ship to show up. The pet moved colored pieces about to play a game with the Beserker until help arrived.
Correct.
And it also involved matchboxes and beads to make a primitive computer than enabled the pet to “learn” the game and never make wrong moves. The result was a long string of tied games that kept the berserker occupied until more warships arrived.
I like Saberhagen’s Dracula novels much, much more than his science fiction. 
The Berzerker stories were all over the place. The original premise, as I recall, was that they were war machines created by alien civilizations, which were at war with one another, programmed to destroy all life they encountered. They did their jobs well, and the alien races were both long extinct. Then the Berzerkers happened upon Earth…
I remember one story about a person who was programming fighter ships with AIs derived from humans to fight the Berzerkers; he was captured and, because the Berzerkers found the whole thing amusing, allowed him to program some fighters with the personalities of “musicians” so that they could entertain themselves shooting them down. The AI-driven fighters devastated the Berzerker fleet, every one returning intact. Turned out the “musician” AI constructs were famous historical ace pilots who just happened to also play an instrument. Kinda a giveaway, since one name on the list was “Manfred von Richthofen”.
I remember reading that one!
There was a great short story about a biology lab arranged around some artificially-created tide-pools where a small group of scientists were studying marine life. The Berserkers lose a battle in orbit, and a small group of them survive to crash-land nearby the lab - murderous little machines that reminded me of the Screamers in that Peter Weller movie.
The scientists are trying to get to their escape rocket, but since they have no weapons, they are at the same time trying to avoid encountering the Berserkers. They see one enter a pool and get swallowed by a shark, but their joy is short-lived with the Berserker literally cuts its way out of the shark’s belly.
As the survivors desperately try to make it to the launch site, they cross a pool filled with rock crabs. When the Berserkers try to follow them, the crabs grab the Berserkers and “crack their shells”, hoping to find something inside to eat, thus saving the remaining humans.
Thanks for the info-it’s an interesting theme.
I’m off to the library to pick a few of these up.
A “berserker” ought to be in the Pentagon’s wish list-think of how useful they might be!
That’s entirely antithetical to most of the stories’ themes!
Like Max Torque related earlier in post #13, above, the Berserkers had already been somebody else’s weapon - a failsafe device that worked too well. They were created by a long-extinct alien race as the ultimate war machines - self-replicating, self-repairing, and relentless - designed to wipe out their opponents when they felt they were on the losing side of a massive interstellar war.
The Berserkers, having finished their original job, then turned on their creators and began purging the galaxy of all life. Some stories mention the Berserkers’ distinction between “GOODLIFE” (living creatures that aid the Berserkers in their cause - usually out of self-preservation) that can be kept alive until it no longer serves a purpose and “BADLIFE” (anything else living), all of which must be destroyed.
One of the short stories that sets the tone for the Berserker-verse introduces Johann Karlsen, a brave human space commander who leads a valiant fleet action against the machines. He is beseeched by the leaders of an alien consortium who, having long ago evolved to a more transcendental state, no longer have it in them to stand up to the Beserkers and fear being wiped out.
We primitive humans, on the other hand, gladly wipe each other out, and are thus deemed the galaxy’s best chance for survival when it comes to fighting the Berserkers. We’re the only ones that still have the guts to do it!
Guy Fleegman you ain’t. 