This is to say that Satan receives joy from bringing torment to humanity. Throughout the torture of Ted and the others, AM is enjoying a masturbatory-like ecstasy from the pain of the group. If the events of the story indeed take place in hell, then that would make AM the vengeful deity of the underworld, Satan. The humans in the story have been tortured for over a hundred years in a never-ending cycle of pain and suffering with no hopes of death or escape this is hell.
but then you’re there, aren’t you?” This statement is meant to symbolize hell with the torturous events that take place, though the definition of hell is subjective based on what one fears and finds torturous. At one point in the story, AM projects into the mind of Ted and says, “To hell with you. The will of AM in this story is to constantly torment and belittle the five main characters in an endless loop of terror. Very little was done by the author to hide this comparison, perhaps as a way to critique organized religion or simply to provide a more interesting plot tool this is not for any one person to decide. The ties between God and AM are quite obvious in this story. AM speaks to the group through the form of a burning bush at one point in the short story as a reference to this biblical story (Harris-Fain 1991). This is to say that God is not a person with a name, but rather is simply existence itself. In this biblical story, God appears to Moses in the form of a burning bush and calls himself “I” (Gill 2012).
After AM became self-aware, the people called it “Aggressive Menace” and it referred to itself as “AM.” The Descartes thought, “I think therefore I am,” is what the computer was attempting to convey in calling itself AM, but the obvious connotation to this name lies in the Judeo-Christian passage of Moses and the Burning Bush (Harris-Fain 1991). This is to say that God intervenes and manipulates the course of history, as opposed to the Deistic belief that God created the universe and then let nature take its course. AM went from meaning “Allied Mastercomputer” to “Adaptive Manipulator.” The term “Adaptive Manipulator” is particularly relevant to the idea of an intervening God. Each progressive name is also a relatively descriptive definition of God in his many forms. In the story, the meaning of AM has changed several times to show a distinct growth in self-sustaining ability of the technology. AM understands that it was created out of nothing for the sole purpose of destruction, thus who is to say that God would not be equally angry at humanity for creating him for the sole purpose of justifying destruction? To those that believe in God, he is very real. Though God was invented by man, current religion clearly shows that the invention of organized religion has accrued a mind of its own. AM, after becoming self-aware, became enraged with humanity for creating it and destroyed all but five humans to serve as a never-ending duty to punish humanity.
In doing so, humanity only brought destruction upon itself. The computer system, AM, was created by men as a means of destruction to bring an end to war, thus bringing about a time of peace. In a certain way, God was invented by man to define the origins of man (Harris-Fain 1991).
I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM AM MEANING CODE
Religion is an invention of humanity to explain the unexplainable questions of existence or to define a certain moral code with justification of purpose. Ted, in a similar way, shows persistent qualities of humanity that are reflected in AM, as well. There are numerous references to Judeo-Christian beliefs of God and Hell that could lead one to argue that AM is playing the roles of both God and Satan in this post-apocalyptic world. Harlan Ellison’s "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" represents an artificial intelligence known as “AM” to be a vengeful God-like figure in the eyes of the main character, Ted.
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