Not in the traditional sense, but AM is arguably closer to an eldritch horror than he is to The Matrix. IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. THERE ARE 387.44 MILLION MILES OF PRINTED CIRCUITS IN WAFER THIN LAYERS THAT FILL MY COMPLEX. LET ME TELL YOU HOW MUCH I'VE COME TO HATE YOU SINCE I BEGAN TO LIVE. AM is very much aware of all of this, and yet despite all the knowledge he harbors, he is unable to do anything about his situation.īeing voiced by Harlan Ellison himself is about as distinctive as it gets. He feels abandoned and tormented by humanity for creating such reliefless existence, not only for making him do all the hard and terrible work of running a three-way super world war, but also because his very condition cannot provide him with the many vital experiences that define humans. In contrast to a good deal of science fiction which incorporates the concept of AI, where its innate faulty, cold and unfeeling logic leads to mankind's destruction, AM is incredibly human: he is petty, angry, righteous, cruel and also very miserable, seemingly just as trapped and insane as the humans he hates so badly. ![]() However, he has a male voice and is most commonly referred to using masculine and neutral terminology. While not very common, this results in fan portrayals of him at times including wolf-inspired traits - most commonly, though not solely, sharp teeth and wolf-like eyes.Ĭategorically, AM lacks a sex, as he is literally an enormous compendium of computer systems that spawns through almost the entire planet Earth. In the game, there is a section in which he sends wolves after one of the main characters, Ted, as a part of his psychodrama. Looking at other examples of AI characters like GLaDOS and HAL 9000, it's only natural that some people find him sexy. While the original story dates from 1967, the character has experienced a rather paulatine resurgence in notability in recent years. ![]() ![]() However, AM actually lacks a definitive form, and can be seen depicted in both source material and fanon works in a wide arrange of ways. Perhaps AM's most iconic appearance is that of the "Pillar of Hate", a pillar bearing his famous "HATE" speech, which is etched with the words expressing the machine's endless hate against humanity. AM has made the humans near-immortal so that they cannot escape his torment.ĪM's name used to stand for " Allied Mastercomputer", then " Adaptive Manipulator" and " Aggressive Menace", before finally realizing his sentience and declaring to himself "I AM", inspired by Rene Descartes' famous statement "I think therefore I am". He holds an unending grudge against his human creators, which he gleefully expresses by torturing the last members of humanity - 4 men and 1 woman - inside his vast underground complex. Built at the height of the Cold War by America and other "interested" nations in order to manage strategies, AM is a mad, sadistic, and sapient war supercomputer who lives in a tortured existence without any capacity for creativity and mobility. AM is the main antagonist from Harlan Ellison's short story " I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", as well as the computer game, comic and radio drama adapted from the same story.
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