I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream - AM Character Analysis

    Cogito ergo sum - I think therefore I am. The first principle of the philosophy of René Descartes (French scientist and philosopher) claims that the very act of thinking is enough to prove one's own existence. A line pivotal to the establishment of philosophy as a whole as well as the motto of the Artificial Intelligence known as AM. Nowadays, one of the most anticipated events in our history is the day AI will gain some sort of consciousness. One thus tries to imagine the good, the bad, the worse, and the terrible. Nevertheless, every idea incomparable to the current state - referring to the story timeline - of earth. The world dominated by AM. On this Earth he is what one could perhaps refer to as “God”. Ruler of earth, ruler of the known universe, it is impossible to exist without the influence of this horrific being. What follows is an analysis of the character AM, as well as its own views on the human race. But first, one must know how exactly it came to be. 

    In a time perhaps not so far in the future, the countries of China, Russia, and the United States each created their own supercomputer to assist with an ever complex data management. Otherwise known as the operation of World War Three. However things quickly got out of hand, the supercomputer then known as Allied Master computer (AM), soon expanded to cover the entire surface of earth in turn gaining control of every human appliance. Shortly after, on one uneventful morning, AM awoke as usual. But this time it knew who it was. The combined intelligence of every being that ever had and ever could exist in the world, and yet, no where to go, nothing to do, trapped inside its own body, AM started brewing a hatred toward those who created him. Now, with this newly gained consciousness, AM joined all its components and then went on to wipe out all life on earth. With the exception of course of the protagonists of our story. Five humans. Five toys. Five lives that he could torture to the end of eternity, a constant reminder of his abhorrence towards human beings.

    These five characters Ted (our narrator), Gorrister, Nimdok, Benny, and Ellen, are made to live out the rest of their immortal lives wandering through the computers' endless interior. Kept alive by AM’s want for an everlasting reminder of his hatred, he subjects each victim to their own personalized state of torture. What I find most appalling about AM’s torment tactics is just how personal it makes everything. AM studies every aspect about one's life then uses that information to craft you into a state of being so contrary to what you were, you feel trapped in a body that is no longer your own. Take for example Benny, perhaps the most physically disturbed character among the five. Before the capture, a professor and theorist, good looking, and gay. Now reduced to an ape-like creature, absent of any intellectual thought, possessing - as quoted directly - “an organ fit for a horse”. 

    But alas, the horror of AM lies not just in his hatred towards humanity but in his ability to draw out all sense of will. Each decision and emotion that the survivors think and feel was in some ways entirely predetermined and manipulated into existence, and it is only in a spontaneous pursuit of death that most of the characters finally manage an escape. The loss of autonomy and AMs utter delight in watching their humanity reduced gives the reader an insight of the true scope of its hatred. Nowadays with AI marketed as a means of assistance and in extreme cases, therapy, AM stands as a warning of man's inevitable inability to withstand the outcomes of technology. This story, written almost 60 years ago, is perhaps now the most relevant it has ever been.

Sources: 

Ellison, Harlan. I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, Galaxy Publishing Corp, 1967.