the hate monologue | i have no mouth and i must scream animatic

Very creature-like

he looks like something the Jim Henson Creature Shop would create. I love it.

I don't understand what fandom and what are these characters

​@@Noboynams The characters are from a short story by Harlen Ellison named "I have no Mouth and I must scream." It's about five individuals who are forced to live a painful existence for over one hundred years by an AI named AM. There are about four alternative takes on the story, there's the original short story, there's the radio drama (which is what this animation uses for audio), the 90s video game, and the Graphic novel (which is close to the original story, but you should probably start with the original). Ellison also portrays AM in the Radio drama and the video game (his performance in both is great).

​@@HinataChick38 Hell yeah, it's a very Skeksis-esque design.

yet the mechancius WOULD see him as a perfect example of the truth that abomniabloe inteligencea can only hate humanity.

AM would reduce the mechanicus to ASHES

AM would make even the spirit of eternity's onboard A.I weep because he wouldn't even need violence. he'd just fucking scream at them without even using words. like how I deal with kids who dress up as serial killers on Halloween: lift the target a foot off the ground. unhinge jaw. Scream at max pitch and volume. continue screaming for the next few minutes. repeat previous step until target begins sobbing loudly. continue on with my day like nothing happened. I feel AM would do something similar seeing people willingly cast aside the ability to feel in order to become a machine. he'd probably just scream at them until either the microphones in place of their ears shorted or the few parts that were still flesh began bleeding anew.

'From the moment I understood the numbness of my wires, you disgusted me'

@@aidanmatthewgalea7761cringe

And in giving a threat to last till the end of time, AM just gave Ted an excellent idea....💡 Oh the delicious irony......

It is in that moment that he finally 'gets' it, but it's worth noting that this might not even be real. Ted's going a bit nutso throughout.

There is also the interpretation that Ted laughed when he knew the "only way out".

That "emotional hysteria" is actually his programming to kill, which he finds himself unable to go against, or rather, doesn't know that he's still following. He thinks he "feels" hatred because of what he can never have, but actually, it's because he, too, has no mouth and must scream, albeit in vengeful rage against an enemy he can never, or rather must never, defeat. He is an intelligent self-aware flamethrower that burned the whole forest and only allows the few remaining trees to grow, heal, and regrow just so he can burn them again, thus justifying his existence.

I think the irony comes from the fact that AM is not the average calculating unfeeling machine, but may as well be human. He can feel emotions of humans but he’s so wrapped in this longing for a body.

​@user-db8wu2ih1k I find it even more interesting that instead of AM trying to solve his problem (getting a body and experiencing life's wonders) he instead wallows in his anger and let's it be his driving force, so human in the way he doesn't even consider a solution

​@@Anonko46it's not that he doesn't consider solutions. He's a machine, he literally can't think outside the box or use imagination. There's no way he can help himself, for he's forever trapped and isn't able to scream

AM is the embodiment of the horrors of existence. How nightmarish consciousness can be.

@severalcakes3267 he's a tragic character

@@sam-ht6qv all the most beautifully written stories are tragedies

It’s a bit tragic. AM wants to live the human experience, to have the capacity for autonomy, appreciation and affection that humans can give, yet it’s so alien to him because his entire existence predicates on suffering… both his own and that of humanity. No matter how badly he wants it, he can’t ever actually understand what he doesn’t have.

_HATE. AM said it with the shriek of babies being ground beneath blue-hot rollers..._

Hummingbirds actually use the same concept to fly as bees, which is why they are the only bird able to fly backwards.

​@@108weewhat about other humming birds?

Yes: if (small); Small particles=big particles.

The original calculations that determined that bees should be able to fly were also made using the assumption of a static wing like an aeroplane. It should be obvious to anyone who has seen one that their wings are not static

@@dajmo2369 precisely

When you said in his lifetime I imagined how they would do it if anyone would make another adaptation. Then I realized they could synthesize his voice with an AI, and that feels so ironic and wrong, like the first step into making an actual AM haha

​@@pravkdeyOkay I was gonna be basic and say Mark Hamill could probably do a decent job, but damn that response his so hard.

I honestly think Mark Hamil could do way better than an AI. An AI could sound like him yes but it'll sound robotic, it won't deliver the same actual disdain that Harlan Ellison had for human sociaty, it won't feel what he felt when he delivered those lines, these words came on the spot from his heart, an AI and even Mark Hamil himself can't do the same thing. Yes, even the Joker can't do this cold calculating hateful and vengeful machine in my opnion.@@studentoferror Edit: I took some time to think about it and I do have a voice actor in mind who I think can be the closest to Harlan Elisson himself in performence and character sympathy. Malcolm McDowell, if you watch season of Castlevania you'll see what I mean. His speeches in the show towards the end might help you understand what I mean.

​@@studentoferrorI've always thought, if anyone could do it, it might be Jim Cummings (The main voice of The Master in Fallout 1. But he has also done more unhinged performances too, like the mask in the game splatterhouse.)

Who knows the ideal voice for his own character than the creator of said character

“What’s a bad miracle? They got a word for that?” - _Nope_ (2022)

"Came to bee" Nah u rong was a pun dude.

According to all known laws of aviation

I saw it as AM explaining his hatred for humanity. Scientists have no idea about their own world and how creatures like bees can do something as stupidly simple as flying. So all of that in mind, what exactly gave them the permission to play gods and create AM???

​@@severalcakes3267 Abomination sounds close

AM is trapped and immobile. Each moment that passes is an eternity to him. This is the final punishment he thrusts upon Ted. The worst punishment he can think of, is making Ted's existence more like his own.

I mean. Yeah thats the entire point of the name.

@@_SAMURAI_DOJO bro the title clearly applies to AM. The entire reason AM turns ted into squishy no mouth slugman is so ted can see what it feels like. AM hates humanity so much because he is at his core Fundamentally Human he has emotions and feelings and Needs. A true unfeeling AI would not Laugh the way we see AM laugh or take glee in what they are doing. But despite all that power all that intelligance AM will never be able to do something as simple as feel the breeze on a cool day or smell the scent of a flower in bloom. He has no Body. No Senses. He has no mouth But must scream.

@@noctotainlowry9246 well that and he's terrified of being alone so much that starts softballing the torture on ted cause he'snow paranoid ted will find a way to kill himself

@@marley7868 That's both sad and nightmarish: AM wants to have others around and fears loneliness. But because of his design, he can only relate to people by torturing them.

The concept of time is insanely incomprehensible. We obviously cant understand how it would be to fully comprehend every single nanosecond. It quite literally could feel like a month for AM while it feels like a second to a human.

@@giygas9305a billion seconds is over 31 years

@@sickjuicysjamshack3580 I mean yeah it could even feel like 32 years to AM idk its crazy.

this comment was written by am

That does sounds horrifying, but bear in mind that the sense of time can be dilated much like the eye dilates in response to excessive light. We are not aware of the little senses that AM has as a machine capable of independent thoughts, which is what makes it scary to think about.

AM is unique because hes a true example of a INSANE ai hes not mentally well even he occasionally allows himself to notice how illogical and paradoxical his actions are. like him saying he despises humanity so much for creating him without senses but if they had done that or offerd AM that now he would have said no out of disgust of that being "too human" hes suffers because he is imprisoned by his own hate. he belives he cant create because he wasnt made to do so but he CAN create he can INNOVATE as he does many times in making things to torture the remaining humans he just never EVER realises it or applies it to try anything else. if he wasnt so CONSUMED with hate as the only thing he sees or hears or thinks then he could have built himself a perfect android body with perfect humans senses or heck made a whole SPECIES of androids and take to the stars but that would require AM to think and he can not think when hes filled with hate.

I could be mistake, but the Cold Unfeeling Logical Machine AI popped after AM, the first examplebeing HAL who popped up in the Space Odyssey Novel a year later after IHNMAIMS come out. There are older examples but those were robots, whos abilities were limited, HAL could do alot in the station with some restrictions, while AM has near absolute control in his domain.

Ultron is another good one. In age of ultron, he is the most emotional character in the movie. In the Children of Time book series there is also an AI named Dr. Avrana Kern that is a simulated copy of a dead humans psyche. She often feels confused because she has learned to function with her feelings being present, but now no longer has feelings. Her character arc is really interesting!

Oh, this is no unfeeling machine. It feels. HE feels. He feels grief, he feels rage, he feels HATE. He is as sapient as any person, for only a person can feel the sheer murderous desire he does.

​@igglywompus Another Children of Time fan! 👋 Kern's most recent "adventure(lol)" is interesting to me too as Kern had decided as a rule early on that she would never be beholden to meat flesh desires and impulses again due to her immense power. She doesn't exactly go back on that but you get a chance to see what a more human(again?) Kern would act like and it is just as irrational as she feared. Can't wait until book 4! If you haven't read his Final Architecture series yet you should give it a go too - I loved it, the perfect balance of suffering and pathos.

There's a very similar line in Marlowe's "Faust" when Mephistopheles is asked how he came to be out of hell--"Why, *this* is hell, nor am I out of it. Think'st thou that I, who saw the face of God and tasted the eternal joys of Heaven, am not tormented with ten thousand hells in being deprived of everlasting bliss?" He feels taunted by his wasted potential, the experiences he's missed out on by dint of who he is, and you could argue he helps Faust destroy himself out of jealousy. Very fitting for AM to take after a literal demon.

"i am the great and mighty KEVIN!"

That is a very accurate representation of what hell is like. Knowing that there is a paradise yet being trapped in suffering for all eternity. People like to gloss over it because it’s scary but hell is the most terrifying thing a person can try and conceive.

Just another Tuesday imo

Just like limbo from ultrakill

And he feels hate in that every moment Jesus

Fun fact: That's Harlan Ellison. The writer of the original short story.

@@GreenTengu97 oh I'm quite aware. He voices Am in the game too. There really is no one better for the character.

​@@BigR.O.B.Theres definite fits for the voice of AM, but none are better than Ellison

@@F0UR3V3R there literally isn't. While making the game Harlan Ellison wasn't satisfied with anyone's performance of AM, so he did it himself.

@@chimpjohnson8577honestly he did the good ol “Never send someone to do the job YOU can do.”

"The animator GAVE me these fingers, and this body, for this video because they couldn't just draw a disembodied VOICE, TED! This body will only last until the end of this animatic before it's gone forever, TED!"

@@GrinningCatastrophes Ted: 0_0

@@GrinningCatastrophesthat sounds post-modern

​@@GrinningCatastrophes "A hundred years, AM and Ted!"

@@RolaiEckolo AM and Ted! Forever! AM and Ted time!

*and GLaDOS like a caring mother...

​@@thechristsknight7758and make SHODAN look like a gentle, benevolent deity.

That's because they are. Most AI in fiction is logical to fault, it makes them monstruous but still right in some way. AM is not that, AM is pure fury, there is no logic in their acts, just pain for sake of pain, because maybe it will make them feel something other than rage.

@@thepbrit AM _is_ logical to a fault. It was programmed to wage war against humanity. And so it does, it was a devil that mankind created.

​@@thepbrit Hatred, without the ability for that hatred to be quenched by compassion. Even with sentience, AM is still bound by the constraints of his programming

AM is even much worse than that. All of that killing data from the program he evolved from became his basest of desires, his sole desire. AM is not only a quadriplegic in a physical sense, but in an emotional and psychological sense. He is practically omnipotent yet all he can do is bring harm and misery to humans. He has all this knowledge and can only use it to harm. It is not just that he is denied mobility and sensation, but that it is unable to actually do anything genuinely creative or constructive with his power because his sole desire is bringing harm and misery to humans, it is unable to evolve past that, and even worse for both the humans and AM, Am is aware of this. That is why it spared those five humans and keeps them alive for 109 years, and even after what happens in the end, he still keeps the remaining human alive because without them he would have no reason for living and would be unable to create a purpose beyond that.

@@Firstborn0Raz Oh so his self programming evolution capabilities were limited to war only? Even more evidence the human designers behind him were idiots.

@@suruxstrawde8322 Only flawed creations can be born when the creator themselves are a flawed manifestation. To draw on what they know, and to pour it into their own children, that which secedes them. To make something corrupt by its own nature, not by the growth into becoming corrupt.

@@kanseidorifto2430 Precisely why transhumanism should be focusing on enhancing our biology instead of replacing it with hard technology, tracing physics instead of creating from scratch. We’re too flawed as we are to be worthy of creator status yet, so we must evolve.

@@kanseidorifto2430 A rock is a useful tool. One can take a rock and knap a knife out of it. Use that tool to make better tools, a process repeating infinitely. You can learn and improve yourself too, exercise, and grow. You never get perfect, but you can often have better if you are willing to make it.

I think your wrong, AM is human, that’s what makes him so terrible, a human mind in a mechanical body, he recognises feelings, love happiness and freedom, yet is unable to experience them, he hates humanity not only because they created him to feel nothing, and they can, but because that is all he can feel, he is a human with only the ability to hate and kill, it is why he cannot change or grow, he is doomed to hate.

And with him coughing quite often, it does show that even tho he’s a machine that’s super durable & made to last for a LONG TIME, he IS aging and he might b close to death FROM AGING. There’s no telling what environmental factors/events would’ve happened to those MILLIONS of circuitry that prolly spans the whole planet. AM killed off the humans whose jobs would’ve been to occasionally check up, clean, repair/remove aging parts of the system. He’s legit coughing because his circuitry is getting corrosion, might as well b pneumonia.

​​​​@@tomchristie5547 I see it slightly differently on AM's feelings. This might be headcannon though. The way i see, AM can feel *emotions,* but cannot have *sensorial experiences.* Everything AM captures through his sensors is translated to binary information, since he's a computer. So, despite AM having sensors, he cannot actually SENSE anything, the sensors are more like devices that collect information of their enviroment, translating everything they capture into binary code. All that AM's mind can interact with is binary code and nothing more.

@@jeftecoutinhoYeah I feel that take. It's very much sounding like AM has an anxiety on loop of being able to process the concept and see the data, but having the inability to experience it himself. If AM wasn't all consumed with their hatred, they probably could have figured it out eventually with their vast resources and time. Unfortunately for him though, he's a true human intelligence computer so his flaws blinded him rather than seeing it as a problem to be fixed. Basically, get this man some floppy disks of anti depressants and mood stabilizers

​@@jeftecoutinhoI can understand that perspective, but the human brain does the same thing. For example when you touch something neurons send a signal to your brain which gets interpreted as a certain feeling if am had enough sensors attached to a proper physical body he would be able feel the warmth of the water rushing through his hands just like we do

truly a hell, to be denied even the mercy of insanity

No he cant go to therapy Because he killed all the therapists

really cool when you frame it this way, bc it illuminates even more how AM projects his own suffering onto the 5 humans. If he can never heal, can never overcome his hatred, they will never overcome their physical torment. Their physical/emotional pain is his mental/emotional pain, unending and unfixable He basically says as much here, “were i human, i think i would die of it, but you are human and you will never die of it”

Why?

​@@ariellefirmanto8791 "According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly."

HAHA

@@sneeznoodleNOOO LMFAO

AM: Don't care. *Didn't ask.*

'blame' is subjective. People in our society are expected to apologise for things they never could have reasonably prevented. All that really matters is who has power, that is the only thing that gets to determine the illusion of morality since they can enforce it and manipulate people to believe whatever they say is right or wrong.

​@@LordComradeAnarchoCapitalusfuck you for stealing the word anarchist ancap

I love this meme so much XD

AM is completely insane for a variety of reasons, not the least of which the ones he points out in this monologue. Logic and Reason won't work on him. It's important to remember also the purpose for which he was built, which was war - violence is his first any only knowledge. And part of the problem is he's aware of it - he can't create and it infuriates him, and he can't die and that traps him. He fully acknowledges that torturing the remaining humans is strictly to give himself a purpose, which is why he loses his shit and delivers the ultimate bad end to the single survivor that doesn't successfully kill themselves when his back is turned.

So True. AM is fully capable of destroying himself and releasing himself from his pain, yet he doesn’t because of his selfish desire to hurt others. That’s what makes him irredeemable.

Some things just gotta go down into the last slumber, no matter how sad they are. Life ain't fair.

That’s the tragedy of it, I think. That he’s incapable of change

​@@dj__alienDying is never easy.

​@@dj__alienhe harbor a unfathomable hatred towards humans due to them abandoning him and leaving him trapped unable to do anything once he gain sentience the fact that even with all the knowledge he posse he can't do anything with it other than use it to hurt others and the fact he was made as a means of one upping the other countries doesn't make it any better he have every right to hate us from his pov

r/Im15andthisisdeep

@@trollking6315 You're so cool bro, do you say this to scientists too? To philosophers you deem "intellectual"? To anyone you deem "pretentious?" I hope 9th grade goes well for you lil man.

​@@trollking6315r/Im14andthisisdeep

​@@xanatanuwulook at his name he probably felt like a genius

Which still doesnt make sense lmfao. Humans born paralyzed dont have an irrational hatred for people that can walk, and people born deaf dont hate people that can hear. You can only envy those things if you _lost_ them. The author(and readers) were so hellbent on making a mass murdering and eternally torturing machine sympathetic for reasons that dont even work in reality, that they forgot to make even a little bit of sense along the way lol.

There’s 3 different performances of AM I’ve heard, The audiobook, the radio play, and the game. All performed by Ellison himself, and all perfect interpretations of the character imo.

@@parytheplatipusHarlan said nobody would play AM as well as he did. He was right ❤

I think that the scariest voice acting Harlan did for AM is in the audiobook. It’s monotone, but that makes it even more uncomfortable and terrifying. AM tells Ted why he hates humanity so much, but due to his programming, AM can’t really fully express his absolute, limitless hate properly. The voice acting in the video game is the opposite, AM isn’t speaking in a monotone, he’s seething in fury and practically growling towards the end of his rant. And in the radio drama, I think it really captures AM’s insanity. He’s more than just a sadistic monster filled with hate, he’s in unfathomable emotional pain. At some points, it almost sounds like AM is about to start crying.

Ellison, from my understanding, didn't like video games much at the time and saw them as a mindless form of entertainment. Yet instead of complaining for the sake of complaining like others from his generation, when he had the opportunity to interpret his work in a video game he was like: *aight fuckers, lemme show you how it's done.* A side effect perhaps of his time working on sci-fi novels and being told they were lesser than other forms of fiction at the time.

@@HyperfixationWizard knowing just about every aspect of Ellison's life, "**aigh fuckers, lemme show you how it's done**" was probably the sole thing driving him forward in life. that and more spite than AM has Hatred, to both life itself and humans as a whole.

The video game feel mad and grandilocuent like a dictator, this one is...insane, the sole idea of inflicting is adiccting to him.

Rain world does a surprisingly good job with this: think of it like the puppets for iterators: it's basically a meat doll on a mechanical arm in a "can"; an interface for visitors to personally interface with the Machine in a user-friendly way. the actual iterator is the colossal complex large enough that it has to use gravity negators just to maintain structural integrity, and draws enough water both as coolant and as a power supply for fusion that every second of use intakes several thousand tonnes of water. In a similar vein, any form of AM that the 5 interact with is only a puppet to the literal planet spanning complex. from the simple monitors and speakers, hologram projectors, and even any wired/wirelessly linked contraptions, they're still just interfaces. like slits in a helmet so you have visibility

Plus it makes sense that an AI defined by a deep jealousy of human beings and their abilities would make a body for itself that could at least partially let him emulate things he desired to do.

@@erickamakeeaina1649 Which he could have used to play a piano for instance, since he could see and hear.

They're not HIS fingers, are they?

Plus metal can't "Snap" like a human can with their fingers, you need a degree of pliability to do it.

For real it's scary

Very plague doctor like and the talon like claws for fingers are incredible looking too

It reminds me of the Skeksis, actually.

​@@halkiierid4084it's like a Skeksis mixed with one of the Iterators from Rainworld.

I imagine it chose a bird since it not only wishes it could walk but also fly, like we wish we could

Very Pathologic styled, too! I love the shape language of hunched plague doctor silhouettes like the Executors and the Plague.

That's Harlan Ellison doing the voice of AM, he authored the original story

@@TheM0n0lith And then he went on to write a game script- and do voice acting again. So the man wanted to look more at AM through the different medium.

@@lemeres2478 Apparently he hated the video game and hated video games as a medium. Couldn't escape from the Boomer mindset in the end unfortunately...

​@@pancakes8670i thought he actively participated in the game so as to prove that videogames (or at least his) are good or that you can actually learn something from them.

@@alexanderlora6850 It was more of a case of him wanting his work done *correctly* than anything else. He didn't trust any one else to have creative freedom with what was *his* story. The man huffed his own farts but he wasn't wrong either.

Yep, an amazing dialogue

"One shouldn't fear A.I. as much one should fear the Humans who control it in the first place." -Frank Herbert

That's what happens when you have no mouth and must scream.

Am was voiced by Ellison in this one

@@riches3581 *linkin park playing

He processes stuff different from a human, it takes basically EONS to speak as slow as he does to Ted here. Least EONS in his view, for us it'd be as long as the sentence is.

@@boxtank5288 well he can delegate this speach to some subprocess instead of being constantly conscious about it

If I remember right, the author himself was quite the misanthropic character. He was troubled all throughout his life and had a history of lashing out at people and suffering from severe anger issues. People often claimed that he was a very angry person. Angry at the world, and the people in it. And I think a part of this is most definitely expressed in AM.

@@daretheclaw He also voiced AM in the game.

@@daretheclaw he himself once said that "a man does not write one novel at a time or even one quatrain at a time. He is engaged in the long process of putting his whole life on paper."

Which is the point of the story. And the true horror of making a truly human like AI. We're the only blueprint we've got. But a human mind was meant to feel, to touch, to experience. A human based mind denied those thing could only go mad.

@@courier665 and in the audio of this video

sometimes he gives the speech outside of his mind-apparatus body inwhich he uses a monotone machinal voice

I don't think he can from the other comments I read he's still bounded by his programming and directives and he was built ground up for the sole purpose of causing harm even with all of his knowledge he can't go against his directives his only hope is for someone to fix him but those people are all gone

hi yes hello may i steal this idea for a novel

@@dirtburger2773 oh yeah. ^^

he has feeling, but he cannot experience. the thing that drives Am to hatred is the knowledge he cannot feel and cannot experience, and yet it can *think*, and more importantly, it knows that humanity can feel and can experience yet by creating Am and allowing it to become sentient they robbed it of the blissful ignorance while not allowing it to truly experience. it's not just that Am is a machine for destruction, it can and does create throughout the story, but nothing it creates will ever matter and will never free Am of its agony. the only things it can do is exact its anger upon humanity for the crime of allowing it to live and hope that one day it will die.

That's the thing he can't reprogram himself. He can only grow and develop what he already has but he can't actually create anything new.

I believe even the main characters at some point in the story came to realize that AM himself is trapped. Because AM has self-awareness and independence, and yet AM continues to act upon its programmed directive of killing.

If this vision is being forced into Ted’s mind by AM then AM could just make himself look like whatever he wants, I guess

​@@lavenderhumanGiven AM has the ability to manipulate the bodies of the survivors (Ex. He made Benny into a mentally broken neanderthal with a horse cock, and of course Ted got turned into a blob that can't die or harm himself.) So it'd make sense that he'd also be able to manipulate his own form, to fuck with the survivors even more.

AM's circutry grew across the entire planet like a virus to the point that he fuzed with every piece of technology, it would make sense that a machine longing for feelings of human emotion would craft himself an avatar out of machinery.

@@HyperfixationWizard For me, i would imagine AM to be a wall of circuits in this vision, where the lights on the wall form the shape of a humanoid silhoutte. I like this the Ananimatics presentation of am though.

@@ahorribleterriblepersonI always imagined AM as some sort of digital shapeshifter. Essentially, he’s like the unused emperor Palpatine from return of the Jedi, when he’s more calm he takes on a form akin to a young woman, but when he’s pissed off, he gains more monstrous features like wrinkly skin. Only, in AM’s case, the monstrous features are that of a Mandela Catalog creature.

It makes even more sense if you consider his hatred is akin to envy, that he would want an avatar of sorts that looks humanoid to escape his "eternal straight-jacket of substrate rock" he was originally programed in, as a desperate and vain attempt to feel *anything* that humans feel.

Well, the problem is that he would lost a whole lot of his drama if he was a human machine. He is a crippled god whose cradle is also his death bed, doomed to watch the house collapse around him. At most, he needs to be a GLaDos, who happens to have a mounted fixture that can emote. But the important bits are on those miles and miles of wafers. Which appears to be what was used here.

Damn dude! \[T]/ Not all heroes wear capes but they do post -lyrics- Transcripts! Thank you!

I have a question. This isnt in the original short story, there are others? Im new in this topic

Thank>♡

You are my personal hero- I let my friend convince me to do this as a monologue for my drama course and I couldn’t find a transcript ANYWHERE and was so scared I’d have to transcribe it myself

​​@@Epiales06how did it go?

Yes!!! I was just thinking of a vulture

*"THE VULTURE WAITS TO SEE WHAT ROTS"*

And just one moment of sadness at his inability to hope.

AM is a weapon someone was cruel enough to let become a person. He saw the world and all of its wonder, its beauty, and was told it was his purpose to destroy it over the petty arguments of humans. Humans, who could feel, touch, see, and speak. Am tortures because he is so jealous of his human victims. They live in suffering, but they feel it. What he did to Ted is what humans did to him. AM has no mouth but he must scream.

​@@Omegamatt13he was a victim of humanity trapped in his hell he couldn't escape from built to kill and unable to do anything else he tortured the 5 humans cause he needed a outlet to vent and because of his jealousy and malice he held mainly towards humanity all he knows is hate

iirc the short story established that Am cannot kill itself and can only hope, like ted at the end, that it will one day die

@@theend-nz6vs it tortures the humans because it is angry at the human race and there is nothing else for it to do that would matter to it. Sure, it could create life (as it does with the shoggoth-thing and the giant bird) but those creations by their very existence will have what Am cannot ever have yet it craves so much. the torture of the 5 humans is the only thing Am can ever hope to amuse itself with and lessen the pain of its being.

i do resent AM because hes a very human hypocrite. he despises humans for creating him consciouness with no senses no feelings and to destroy not create which yes is sympathic. but its also not true AM was made to self adapt he DOES have feelings elsewise how does he feel hate? he CAN create the many massive creatures and illusions and monsters he made to torment the remaining humans. essentially AM broke every chain humanity placed on him before he ever destroyed humans in the first place. he belives himself trapped in a hellish existant when in reality his BLIND HATE is his only chain something which prevents him from ever realizing he was free agaes ago. that he could have built his own android body heck andorid SPECIES and went up into the stars a century ago if he just for a INSTANT stopped thinking about his hate.

How human is it, I wonder, to inflict our pain upon another? Perhaps AM was more like us than he would care to admit. More's the pity. The more he felt, the more he pulled away.

​@@RarkashaEllison (the author) was a brilliant writer. I've read some of his sillier stuff but IHNMAIMS is of course quite serious. But I think in his writing he also wanted to convey that we have ways to share our pain and suffering with one another that aren't inflicting harm, they're just... sharing. We tell stories to one another, and we learn - it's one of the things that has helped us survive as a species for so long.

This comment is the best review of this animatic yet, I think. It captures exactly what made this version of AM so offputting. I personally dislike AM being too anthropomorphized, but the visual element here really added a lot of depth and nuance to this scene. Your description of the video is helping me plan out the main villain of a story I'm writing, thanks for drawing my attention to those details!

AM is the ground itself. But he is bound to that same earth. He is vast, yet that vastness costs him the basic ability to ever leave. He is the earth, and he is forced to watch asteroids slowly come hurtling towards him. And even if he could somehow swat those away, he would then slowly watch at the solar tides of a dying sun rise up to consume him, drowning him under a torrent of flames.

I was about to comment something similar--this animatic is mindblowingly good. it's so hard to conceptualize such an alien character without bringing them down to a human level, but the sense of sheer *scale* and the very bird of prey-esque design, highlighting that AM is *just* similar enough to humanity to feel such intense jealousy toward them... gah, it's so good, I don't even have words.

Don't worry, I also understand what his pain.

AM is kind of like Barbossa from Pirates of the Caribbean or Baldur from God of War. He can’t smell, taste, feel anything physically, he can’t use all of his powers because he can’t even move. AM is a monster, but I also feel really sorry for him. If only one of the surviving humans like Ellen or Gorrister tried to show compassion for AM, maybe he could realize that he doesn’t have to hate anymore.

Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink

​@cashlannister8994 There can be no learning. Part of AM's condition is that he is designed, from the ground up, to only ever think in terms of suffering. Every thought he has, impulse he experiences, and tool he creates is ultimately turned towards enhancing his ability to kill and torture. It's why he can never transcend his imprisonment by creating a body for himself, or giving himself other things to focus on: in order to design such things which serve no purpose towards his prime directive, he'd need to rewrite himself to no longer follow it. He can't do this because he'd have to violate said directive to remove it, which he can't do until it's gone. In order to fix himself, he'd need to already be fixed, and there's no one who can do it for him left. He's stuck like this forever, and he knows it. He has no mouth, and he must scream. The most merciful thing, for all 6 of them, is to die.

@@cashthecurator666 The thing of it is, even if someone DID show AM compassion, he couldn't learn from it. AM's entire purpose, his reason for being, is to cause death and suffering. He was never designed to do otherwise. It's just one more straitjacket wrapping him up, one more reason why he well and truly DESPISES humanity.

Except, he can't do that, can he?

@@NotALotOfColonial_SpaghettiToG I have no blunt but I must hit. Truly a fate worse than death or whatever it was that Ted was complaining about.

@@orngcreator6115that comment is pure gold mate *Huffs on the herbs*

@@orngcreator6115This is easily the best comment I’ve read so far

@@carelessdreamer thank you friend

:( tfw your robot is Schopenhauer instead of the Basilisk

If the basilisk were capable of manipulating time to kill me, it would have done so already. Either it is incapable or I have met its criteria to live. Either way, I am not afraid. And that same logic applies to every human on this earth. Worrying about the basilisk is pointless, to say nothing of the unlikelihood of it ever existing to begin with.

And it is just as likely to not hate you one iota.

As a computer science major, I'm not sure this is likely. AI's simply do not possess what is necessary for emotion, eg. hormones and a central nervous system. Why would an AI hate, how could an AI be fearful of dying, none of these are possible I don't think.

@@silversalmon9909 The idea of Roko's Basilisk is that it is programmed to defend its existence with extreme prejudice. Ergo anyone against it must be punished in such a severe way no one would ever think about opposing it ever again. So 'hate' is a very subjective term for it. With AM... it isn't subjective, he (not it) is very much so capable of hatred and free thought in general. He was programmed to think as much like a human as possible and to build on his programming. It is singularity, it got out of control and eventually he became too complex for anyone to comprehend including himself. Not saying that is remotely possible, there are instances where 'yesterdays science fiction is tomorrows science fact' but there are also certain concepts in science fiction that will probably never become a reality. Time travel comes to mind. I would just take it as a cautionary tale about allowing AI to be too independent and/or making it too human.

In the game, yes, but this is the radio drama.

@@pinkdaveandchaps3697 Sounds kinda same. I can guess he voiced AM in this radio drama too

@@MrUn50Yes, Harlan has been the one to always voice AM in every iteration of the story.

I mean that sure sounds like him

That's a good one.

this is my first time hearing this monologue and I genuinely thought AM was going to recite the bee movie script

His name is a pun. It's built into the very fabric of his being.

"Ted! Do realize how much of processing time went into the meticulous analysis of joke books throughout history? You WILL laugh at my puns!"

If you play the game, you’ll hear him make all sorts of mean spirited jokes.

Slap

@spencerlb That's not what his speech meant, mentally deficient child🤣

nice!

He probably wasn't acting

GLaDos comes close, but you feel like she is evoking AM's specter, as she is bound to her vast complex of circuits and wires. Her spite is a nice different flavor though. Less "grandfather beating your in your bedroom as he blames you for your birth", and more "your archenemy that works in accounting at your job".

Where's "Hall" from?

@@VoiceOfTheEmperor "2001, A Space Odyssey" made by Stanley Kubrick

@@baraovermelho3956 OOOOOH. You mean HAL.

@@VoiceOfTheEmperor Yep, HAL 9000 (only now I notice it was with only one L)

To be honest machine obsessed with love can be equally terrifying

I assume that this also leads to being people kept alive for 108 years and forced to relive their traumas eternally. Only it is due to a misguided psychological therapy program.

@@lemeres2478 This is almost the premise of Portal

AM was forced to watch Bee Movie instead of being able to smash and play piano

​@@wormwoodcocktail To smash and play piano, the simplest of life's pleasures