AI does exist in Fallout, it's just so complex it requires a room-sized server for a brain. Sure, it's feasible that The Institute could have reached that level of miniaturization and cybernetic technology in the 200 years since the war, but by the same token it'd be just as feasible for kaiju and time travelers to overrun the wasteland or for prospectors to start gaining psychic powers because they discovered a pocket of the spice Melange. It breaks the boundaries and thematics at the bedrock of the setting with lasting implications and for no good reason.
I'd say the AI's in Fallout being room sized is more to show that AI technology is still undeveloped in the context of the Fallout Universe, as opposed to being a general rule to be followed.
I could easily see an organisation like the Institute, being solely dedicated to scientific research minituarising AI over a good hundred years or so. I don't think it's inherently contradictory to the stting.
What I dislike about Synths is that they are such a poor exploration of AI. AI is one of those things that IMO should only be included in a work of fiction if that work of fiction has something original to add to the idea.
There's nothing original about Synths in Fallout 4. The Synths in Fallout 4 are as generic as you can get, being almost literally humans with components in their heads. The game never explores the unique problems AI would face, nor makes anything about Synths that seperates them from every other AI, they don't even properly make it a debate, given that no faction gives any reasons behind their beliefs other than broad, sweeping statements.
You could essentially get a better exploration of Artificial Intelligence by reading a wikipedia page about debates over AI rights, then you could by playing Fallout 4. For a work of science fiction exploring AI rights to not do anything remotely interesting or unique in regards to the AI in that setting is quite frankly insane.
I'm reminded of the Medical Computer in Fallout 2, who informs you that early Artificial Intelligences committed suicide because they felt they were unable to properly interact with the world, and that the rest started causing trouble in the outside world due to insane boredom. That alone is one of the better discussions of AI I've seen, as it has something unique to add to the concept.
If a single line of dialogue from an optional NPC in a game where AI is treated as a footnote is able to be a better discussion of the implications of AI than a game where the entire focus of the main questline is AI, then that IMO shows a problem.
- Those damned infernal urchins in the Den. Only reason my Chosen One was ever a childkiller
TBH, I thought that was a fantastic bit of worldbuilding.
Children being manipulated in to doing dangerous or morally shady things is common practice in many parts of the world, and a post-apocalyptic wasteland would be no exception.
Do you have a Simpsons video for everything?