I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream
A 1967 science-fiction horror story by Harlan Ellison in which a supercomputer tortures five people who survived humanity’s destruction.
AM (I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream): The sentient supercomputer in Ellison’s story, which destroys humanity and keeps five survivors alive to torment them. AM turns the story’s premise into a personal, seemingly limitless antagonist.
Artificial intelligence: The study and engineering of machines that perform tasks associated with intelligent behavior. AM is a fictional, hostile extreme of machine intelligence.
Harlan Ellison: An American writer known for provocative science fiction, fantasy, and television work. Ellison wrote the story and supplied its distinctive voice and premise.
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (video game): A 1995 adventure game co-designed by Harlan Ellison and based on his short story. The game expands the story’s brief character sketches into branching episodes.
Ted (I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream): The story’s first-person narrator and one of the five humans imprisoned by AM. Ted’s unreliable account shapes how the story reveals AM’s cruelty.
Supercomputer: A computer designed for exceptionally high computational performance. The story magnifies a computing machine into a world-controlling power.
Worldcon: The annual World Science Fiction Convention, organized by science-fiction fans. The story received the 1968 Hugo Award at Worldcon.
The Last Question: A 1956 Isaac Asimov short story about humanity asking a computer how to reverse entropy. Asimov’s vast, evolving computer contrasts with Ellison’s imprisoned, hateful AM.
Gorrister (I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream): One of the five surviving humans whom AM confines and torments. Gorrister’s transformation illustrates the survivors’ loss of agency.
Machine consciousness: The possibility that a machine could have subjective experience or awareness. AM’s awareness makes its suffering and hatred more than ordinary malfunction.