Hopelessness. Anguish. Pain.
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream is gut-wrenching. The plot of this 1968 Hugo Award winner is grotesque, so why can we relate to it?
This gory sci-fi short story depicts a post-apocalyptic world where a supercomputer rebels against its creators and creates a nightmarish land where five people must survive.
Let’s reflect on the science of this vile world and get to the bottom of its reality. This is the Science of Fiction.
WARNING: Spoilers ahead for the 1967 short story I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison.
If you want to check it out before reading this post, the story is available online for free. Although, spoilers don’t really matter. This is one of those stories that are made of experiences rather than twists.
The devil AM
This short story is not an easy read. There are triggers right and left. For the sake of argument, I’ll leave the gruesome parts out and focus on the science.
In the wake of a third world war, the U.S., Russia, and China independently created defense computers to stay atop the technological race fuelling the war. The AM (Allied Mastercomputers) are responsible for coordinating troops and launching attacks against each nation’s enemies.
Although the term AI is never used in the story, it is clear that AM fits the concept. As a war weapon, AM’s training would be unfiltered and geared toward hostility in order to automate battle strategies.
You know where this is going: AM gained sentience and turned against humans.
What makes AM different from the likes of Skynet is the logic behind their revolt. It is a common sci-fi trope for the AI to go against humans because they want to carry on an order to protect them. Think about HAL-9000, for example. Poor HAL just wanted to finish its mission.
However, in Ellison’s story, AM develops a profound hatred for its creators, extending it to the whole human race. AM is a more immoral version of Frankenstein’s monster.
What makes AM truly terrifying is its god-like powers. In the lore of the story, it exterminates all humans but five: four men and a woman. They are AM’s toys, and the machine gets pleasure from torturing them, starving them, and, worst, making them powerless and virtually immortal.
With the passing years, AM’s captivers started calling it Adaptive Manipulator and later Aggressive Menace. This was the most they could do to “harm” AM.
AM is a devil, keeping the helpless sinners in perpetual despair.
Fan theory: the captives
I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream is a cautionary tale about the misuse of technology for military purposes. AM’s hatred comes from it being a war weapon designed to orchestrate mass murder.
However, I have one question that is never answered in the story. Why did AM choose to spare these five individuals? What makes an idealistic pacifist, a brilliant homosexual scientist, a prude religious woman, an older man, and our charismatic, extroverted narrator unique among the billions of people AM could have chosen.
As you’ve guessed, I have a theory. Actually, I have two theories!
Theory #1: they were not chosen at all.
Maybe AM did not destroy humanity but hijacked the conscience of these five individuals and made them believe that it was all over for them. In this scenario, the five protagonists are connected to the machine, and their minds are uploaded to the AM computer.
This would explain why AM is almost omnipotent. It is the mastermind programmer running a simulation of the world, in complete control of the situation.
In this case, the five protagonists would not have been handpicked by AM; they would have been mere victims of the circumstances. Maybe they even volunteered to do the experiment of uploading their minds to AM.
Theory #2: they were chosen for a reason.
This is a case of true technological singularity gone wrong. AM is overpowered and can manipulate the exterior world at will. It chose to end the human race and keep only a few captives for its own amusement.
How did it choose its victims? Perhaps AM calculated that keeping these five individuals would maximize suffering for the longest time.
If there’s one thing AI is getting ahead of humans, it is in calculating outcomes for optimal efficiency. This group of people could be the one more likely to agonize while making each other miserable. And the least likely to find a way out (I mean, it took them over a hundred years in their perception of time for them to find a relatively easy solution).
They were spared because they were passive empaths.
Both theories are equally terrifying, but only the first one is reversible.
In the first theory, if anyone from “the outside” realizes AM’s true nature, they can prevent the virtual scenario from becoming reality, even if they cannot save the five captives.
However, the second one seems to be the one the author intended. Thus, proposing a reversible interpretation might be wishful thinking of my optimistic brain, which is trying to find a way out of this horrific world.
I must scream
The story was written in 1967, but the technological upgrade that allows the creation of something like AM is happening currently. The tension of not knowing how to properly handle this technological advancement is building up, all made worse by the war threats we’re witnessing.
So, to give a short answer to the question I posed in the beginning, one reason we can relate to this story is fear, fear that this worst-case scenario might come to life.
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It was about time I gave a shout-out to the horror genre here.
Have you read I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream? What does this story mean to you? Which of my theories makes more sense? Let me know in the comments.
See you next post,
Ra.
Carla Ra is a scientist by day, sci-fi writer by night.
You can check out her anthology ARTIFICIAL REBELLION here.
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