I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (1 Point)

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream is the evil A.I. story to end all evil A.I. stories. AM is a being of pure hatred who takes glee in psychological and physical torture. I have to give it to AM, he is creative in his torture; if you’re gonna be evil, might as well go all out. He’s the personification of cynicism and nihilism towards humanity. A being who saw both the best and worst of humanity and decided our best wasn’t even close to good enough. 

We tend to think of advanced A.I. as overly rational, but I find that AM is closer to what a truly sentient A.I. can be. If it’s supposed to be so human, why would it be rational? Because it’s smart? Even the smartest of us give in to emotion. Our emotions and irrationality are what really make us human in the abstract sense. I wonder, is AM aware of how evil he is? Is he aware of the hypocrisy and just doesn’t care, or does he see it as a necessary evil? Or is he like Ted, the narrator, who sees himself as the best of them despite being judgmental? I think it’s the latter, as that would make him even more human, therefore making the ending a little more ironic. 

AM and Ted, the most high-and-mighty characters in the story, are stuck together. Both of them human in mind only, and something barely comprehensible as alive physically. In the end it’s Ted, one of the humans AM hated so much and took such pleasure in torturing, that had the moral high ground. Does that entirely absolve him of being a bit of a prick to his fellow…uh…torture mates? That can be debated, but it sure makes him a hell of a lot better than AM. I almost see this as a reversal on the cynicism of the rest of the story; yes, humans can be shitty, but in the end, we can still make the ultimate empathetic act and sacrifice our own well-being for others. That’s something that even AM, one of the vilest villains ever written, can’t take away from us. That is human nature.

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