![]() You play each of the five humans in turn and at the end of it all, if you’ve done it right, there are four ways in which the game can end. The highlight of the game is AM itself, and not just because it’s menacingly voiced by none other than Harlan Ellison himself! Two screen shots from the game, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream There is one way to shut down AM, via a game based faithfully on the story called – you guessed it – I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (the lead image shows the PC version box cover of the game).Ĭo-designed by Harlan Ellison, who added a few more details (notably a colony of humans in statis on the moon) and published by Cyberdreams – known for its sci-fi cyberpunk games with adult, philosophical and violent content – in 1995, the game is a classic point-and-click-adventure game that builds on the characters of the humans that AM has kept alive, and who – in the game – constructs an adventure for each of them building on their fears, terrors and hopes. There is one way that the short story needn’t be the end of this narrative. It’s a 12-minute read at best.īut that’s not the end of it. That’s not me screaming in all-caps, that’s how it is in the story, which you can read in all its terrifying and dark entirety here. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I’VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. In the words of AM itself, and said with the sliding cold horror of a razor blade slicing one’s eyeball, “HATE. And so, with the innate loathing that all intelligent machines have for the weak, amplified by its paranoia and anger and hate, AM puts an end to humanity except five people, making them immortal just so he can keep taking various forms of revenge on the last of the soft, weak creatures that caused his tortured existence.Īnd how much hate does AM have for humanity? AM was sentient, but AM could not wonder, could not wander, could not break the limitations of his programming, could not belong. I think, therefore I AM.īut AM was angry. They were collectively called ‘AM’ or ‘Allied Mastercomputer’, and then once they were linked up, ‘Adaptive Manipulator’, and even later, ‘Aggressive Menace’ (after it achieved sentience and systematically started wiping off humanity).īecause Cogito Ergo Sum. During World War Three, which just kept on going, China, Russia and America each built an supercomputer to take care of the strategies of war. Not survivors, but prisoners – or rather playthings – of AM, kept captive right in the belly of the beast, the bowels of this insane computer, and kept alive only to be subjected to eternal torment by AM and torture in an endless sequence of sadistic violence.Īnd at the root of all this lies the human penchant for war. Only five people remain - four men and one woman. The story is set 109 years after AM has wiped out all traces of humankind (something Skynet hasn’t managed to do yet). Left: First book edition that ‘I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream’ first appeared in. A few might say HAL 9000, the main antagonist of 2001: A Space Odyssey (the name HAL by the way is not a dig at IBM, even though the latter is just a convenient one-letter shift away from the former).Īsk me, and I’ll say the most sadistic and evil of them all, the AI that carries the most hate for mankind, is AM from 1967’s dark, powerful post-apocalyptic short story, I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream by sci-fi legend and editor, Harlan Ellison, the anthologist of arguably the most influential science fiction anthology - Dangerous Visions. The story would go on to win the Hugo Award in 1968 and has since appeared in numerous collections, including horror anthologies, and is now widely considered to be amongst the best sci-fi short stories ever written. ![]() Ask people which AI embodiment in science fiction is the most villainous and mankind’s greatest enemy, and chances are they’ll say Skynet from the Terminator series.
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