On a certain level, Agent Smith is actually a sympathetic character. He appears to be extremely powerful, able to perform feats of strength, agility and magic which place him far above the teeming masses of humanity. Yet those very teeming masses repulse him, he is tortured by his existence in a world not of his choosing, and from which he has no escape. Because for all his power, he is a slave, one who lacks even the basic ability to end his own life that for any one of us is as close as the nearest pill bottle or tall building. Even his plan to uncover Zion and thus make himself redundant relies on his assumption that he will be granted release by his unnamed masters once the human meatspace resistance is destroyed. Not a very nice way to "live".