"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a dystopian science fiction short story by Harlan Ellison. The story was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. The story won a Hugo award in 1968. In addition, the story was adapted into a computer game in 1995. Ellison wrote story and dialogues for the game, and voiced the supercomputer "AM". This article is about the philosophical concept. ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... Harlan Ellison, c. ... 1967 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Hugo Award is given every year for the best science fiction or fantasy stories of the previous year, and for related areas in fandom, art and dramatic presentation. ... 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... A computer game is a game composed of a computer-controlled virtual universe that players interact with in order to achieve a defined goal or set of goals. ... 1995 was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The story is about five humans who are trapped inside the belly of the supercomputer "AM", namely Human beings are defined variously in biological, spiritual, and cultural terms, or in combinations thereof. ... We use computer to go on the porn site ... AM is the name of the evil computer in Harlan Ellisons short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. ...

• Gorrister, who knows the history of AM. He was once an idealist and pacifist, until AM made him apathetic and listless.
• Benny, who was once a brillant, handsome, homosexual scientist, until AM transformed him into a simian with gigantic sexual organs and took away his sanity.
• Nimdok, who lives in a state of denial, persuading the group to go on a hopeless journey in search of canned food at the beginning of the story.
• Ellen, who is the only female. She claims to once have been chaste, but AM made her more or less willingly accept being the group's prostitute.
• Ted, the Narrator, who seems to be the only one capable of thinking straight, and perceives the inability to hide behind the shelter of insanity as the cruelest punishment AM had to offer.

AM has destroyed the rest of the human race. In the beginning, there were an American, a Soviet and a Chinese supercomputer, each programmed for a global war against its two opponents. But then, the computers connected to each other, gained sentience and annihilated humanity. AM feels its own creation was an act of unimaginable cruelty, and therefore possesses an extreme hatred for humanity. The machine's hatred combined with its godlike power resulted in the destruction of the human race, save five humans which AM saved solely for the purpose of inflicting endless suffering upon. In philosophy, idealism is any theory positing the primacy of spirit, mind, or language over matter. ... Pacifist may mean: an advocate of pacifism. ... Homosexuality is a sexual orientation characterized by esthetic attraction, romantic love, or sexual desire exclusively for another of the same sex. ... Families Cebidae Aotidae Pitheciidae Atelidae Cercopithecidae Hylobatidae Hominidae The simians (infraorder Simiiformes) are the higher primates very common to most people: the monkeys and the apes, including humans. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Sexual abstinence or chastity is the practice of voluntarily refraining from sexual intercourse and (usually) other sexual activity. ... Prostitution is the sale of sexual services (typically manual stimulation, oral sex, sexual intercourse, or anal sex) for cash or other kind of return, generally indiscriminately with many persons. ... Sentience is the capacity for basic consciousness -- the ability to feel or perceive, not necessarily including the faculty of self-awareness. ... Human beings are defined variously in biological, spiritual, and cultural terms, or in combinations thereof. ... This page meets Wikipedias criteria for speedy deletion. ... For the emotion Hatred please see Hate Hatred (Nenavist) is a Soviet film of 1975 directed by Samvel Gasparov. ... Suffering is any unwanted condition and the corresponding negative emotion. ...

The story is told from the perspective of one of the five humans, Ted. The humans are kept alive by AM, but subjected to physical and psychological torment. After hellish torture in an ice desert, AM provides the starving group with canned food, but no means of opening the cans. In pure frustration Benny snaps and tries to eat Gorrister. During the struggle, sharp icicles start falling down. Ted achieves a victory over AM by killing his four peers using the icicles as makeshift weapons while the computer is distracted by the struggle, thus ending their suffering and depriving AM of four of his precious toys. However, as a punishment and safety precaution, AM transforms him into a gelatinous blob in order to prevent him from committing suicide; hence the title, "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream." Suicide (from Latin sui caedere, to kill oneself) is the act of willfully ending ones own life; it is sometimes a noun for one who has committed or attempted the act. ...

External links

• Complete story