I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

"I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic short story by American writer Harlan Ellison. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction.
The story is set against the backdrop of World War III, where a sentient supercomputer named AM, born from the merging of the world's major defense computers, eradicates humanity except for five individuals. These survivors—Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, Ted, and Ellen—are kept alive by AM to endure endless torture as a form of revenge against its creators. The story unfolds through the eyes of Ted, the narrator, detailing their perpetual misery and quest for canned food in AM's vast, underground complex, only to face further despair.
Ellison's narrative was minimally altered upon submission and tackles themes of technology's misuse, humanity's resilience, and existential horror. "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" has been adapted into various media, including a 1995 computer game co-authored by Ellison, a comic-book adaptation, an audiobook read by Ellison, and a BBC Radio 4 play where Ellison voiced AM. The story is critically acclaimed for its exploration of the potential perils of artificial intelligence and the human condition, underscored by Ellison's innovative use of punchcode tapes as narrative transitions, embodying AM's consciousness and its philosophical ponderings on existence.
The story won a Hugo Award in 1968. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring this story. It was reprinted by the Library of America, collected in volume two of American Fantastic Tales.
As the Cold War progresses into a nuclear World War III fought between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, each nation builds an "AM" (short for Allied Mastercomputer, then Adaptive Manipulator, and finally Aggressive Menace), needed to coordinate weapons and troops due to the scale of the conflict. These computers are extensive underground machines which permeate the planet with caverns and corridors. Eventually, one AM emerges as a sentient entity possessing an extreme hatred for its creators. Combining with the other computers, it subsequently exterminates humanity, with the exception of five individuals, whom it tortures inside its complex. The humans, four men (Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, and Ted) and one woman (Ellen), have been rendered virtually immortal (yet still vulnerable to physical and mental pain) and unable to die by suicide.
The story, narrated by Ted, begins 109 years after the start of the humans' imprisonment. They are kept half-starved by AM; when Nimdok has the idea that there exists canned food in the complex's ice caves, they begin a 100-mile journey to retrieve it. Through the journey, AM tortures the humans: Benny's eyes are melted after attempting escape, a huge bird which AM had placed at the North Pole creates hurricane gales with its wings, and Ellen and Nimdok are injured in earthquakes.
When the five finally reach the ice caves, they find a pile of canned goods, but no tool to open the cans. In an act of rage and desperation, Benny attacks Gorrister and begins to eat his face. Gorrister wails in pain, and his scream dislodges several ice stalactites from the ceiling of the cave. Ted realizes that even though they cannot kill themselves, there is nothing AM can do to stop them from killing each other. He fatally impales Benny and Gorrister with a stalactite of ice. Ellen kills Nimdok in the same manner and Ted then kills her. Unable to resuscitate the others, AM focuses the entirety of its rage on Ted. Several hundred years later, AM has transformed Ted into a gelatinous, amorphous blob, unable to harm himself. AM also alters his perception of time to cause him further anguish. However, Ted finds some comfort knowing that he was able to spare the others further torment. The story ends with his thought: "I have no mouth. And I must scream."
Ellison wrote the 6,500-word story over a year and a half, finally completing it when Frederik Pohl commissioned it for a Special Hugo Winners issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction, after Ellison won a Hugo for "Repent, Harlequin!" Said the Ticktockman. Ellison derived the story's title, as well as inspiration for the story itself, from his friend William Rotsler's caption of a cartoon of a rag doll with no mouth. The second stage of inspiration was a drawing by the artist Dennis Smith of a mouthless black humanoid. Smith had provided art which had inspired previous Ellison stories and were then used as illustrations accompanying original magazine publication as also happened with this story. Afterwards, his editor Frederik Pohl dealt with the story's "difficult sections", toning down some of the narrator's imprecations and eliminating mentions of sex, penis size, homosexuality, and masturbation; said elements were nonetheless eventually restored in later editions of the story.
Ellison uses an alternating pair of punchcode tapes as sections – representing AM's "talkfields" – throughout the story. The bars are encoded in International Telegraph Alphabet No 2, a character coding system developed for teletypewriter machines. The first talkfield translates as "I think, therefore I am" and the second as "Cogito ergo sum"; the same phrase in Latin. They were not included in the original publication in IF, and in many of the early publications were corrupted, up until the preface of the chapter containing "I Have No Mouth, And I Must Scream" in the first edition of The Essential Ellison (1991); Ellison states that in that particular edition, "For the first time anywhere, AM's 'talkfields' appear correctly positioned, not garbled or inverted or mirror-imaged as in all other versions."
Ellison adapted it into a video game, published by Cyberdreams in 1995. Although he was not a fan of video games and did not own a PC at the time, he co-authored the expanded storyline and wrote much of the game's dialogue, all on a mechanical typewriter. Ellison also voiced the supercomputer AM and provided artwork of himself used for a mousepad included with the game. The comics artist John Byrne scripted and drew a comic-book adaptation for issues 1–4 of the Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor comic book published by Dark Horse (1994–1995). The Byrne-illustrated story, however, did not appear in the collection (trade paperback or hardcover editions) entitled Harlan Ellison's Dream Corridor, Volume One (1996). In 1999, Ellison recorded the first volume of his audiobook collection, The Voice From the Edge, subtitled "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", doing the readings – of the title story and others – himself. In 2002, Mike Walker adapted the story into a radio play of the same name for BBC Radio 4, directed by Ned Chaillet. Harlan Ellison played AM and David Soul played Ted.
In an interview with Forbes in October 2023, American animator and composer Gooseworx of Glitch Productions confirmed that her independently-animated web series The Amazing Digital Circus was a loose adaptation of "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", describing the main difference from the original short story being "instead of AM being a living embodiment of hate, he's a fun-loving wacky little guy [named Caine]". The character is voiced by Alex Rochon.
Much of the story hinges on the comparison of AM as a merciless god, with plot points paralleling to themes in the Bible, notably AM's transplanted sensations and the characters' trek to the ice caverns. AM also takes different forms before the humans, alluding to religious symbolism. Furthermore, the ravaged apocalyptic setting combined with the punishments is reminiscent of a vengeful God punishing their sins, similar to Dante's Inferno. However, in spite of its magnificent feats, AM is just as trapped as the five humans it tortures: as Ellison put it, "AM is frustrated. AM has been given sentience, prescience, great powers" and yet "it's nothing but plates and steel and gauges and other electronics", which means "it can’t go anywhere, it can’t do anything, it’s trapped. It is, itself, like the unloved child of a family that doesn’t pay it any attention. Which he considers torture. Thus, seeking revenge on humanity."
According to Ellison, the short story is a warning about "the misuse of technology" (especially military technology), and its ending is intended to represent how there is "a spark of humanity in us, that in the last, final, most excruciating moment, will do the unspeakable in the name of kindness", even sacrificing oneself for others' sake.
Another theme is the complete inversion of the characters as a reflection of AM's own fate, an ironic fate brought upon themselves by creating the machine, and the altered 'self'.