I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream: Mind Games

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The mind is an interesting subject to explore, after all we have spent much of our existence trying to figure out its functionings. Humans have done various experiments exploring its processes, and how it can be altered. Science-fiction stories provide a way for us to explore concepts about the mind without actually performing them on people, providing us with a variety of outcomes. One notable story that does this is the amazingly titled “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”. In the story, the last five humans in existence are tortured by the supercomputer AM, who regularly messes with their minds as a sick form of entertainment and punishment. Each character, even AM arguably, is suffering from some experimentation done to them psychologically, or physically in some cases. Each of the five main character’s take some notable aspect of their person and completely alters it, leaving them shadows of their former selves.

While many could see this as a story discussing the dangers of artificial intelligence, the effects of the alterations of the characters are far more horrifying to explore in my personal opinion than. Assuming that everything that Ted has said is true and not a product of AM’s artificial alterations or warped psyche from 109 years of this hell, it’s interesting to explore the idea of supposedly integral parts of ourselves being changed or stripped away. It’s even more interesting and terrifying to see the damage of losing those aspects. This story reminded me heavily of the unethical psychology experiments of the 20th century and the impact those experiments had on the patients. While it’s one thing to read about it in a clinical, sterile textbook in a high school psychology class, it’s another thing to read a retelling of those damages, even in an extreme, speculative fashion. The story provides a fascinating, if not horrifying, way to look at the human mind and what makes us, well, us.

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