Maybe the AIs are creating something like the Stepford Wives, and Wilkis was part of it. So the Benny we originally saw was a normal human, but then once he was keeping an eye on Wilkis, WIlkis killed him and created an AI Benny (outlandish theory, I don't really think this is the case).
I do wonder if Benny and Helen are human/AI hybrids, and Piper is the first fully synthetic AI, and that's why they are so anxious to get her back. She represents the next step in their evolution.