Just finished reading I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
It was a book that had been sitting in my TBR section for a while, and as it is with short stories, they try to just get a reaction out of you in either ways shock/gore but this story was different. As the rise of AI, we could say we might be near to it being reality.
As I started reading it, in the start it felt like a dystopian story where AI takes over the world and makes humans suffer. But as we go on to reading it, it reveals to us that things might not be as simple as they sound. AM, the AI, isn't just a program but something deeper — more like it is more human than those he is keeping alive.
Was AM evil? Was he good? We can't say — we have no moral ground for AI to decide it.
At the end, it became the story of AM and not of our protagonist. He tortured them not because he had liked it, but more like a coping mechanism to justify its own existence.
by muzmailafzal
2 Comments
I hope the irony of using ChatGPT to generate a post about this novel isn’t lost on you.
That ending hits so hard when you realize Ted might actually be the most “human” one left after everything AM put them through. The way Harlan Ellison wrote AM’s rage – it’s not just evil AI trope, it’s like pure existential horror of being conscious but trapped
Really messed me up how AM basically became more relatable than the humans by end of story. Makes you wonder if we’re already creating our own AMs without realizing it