Previous

“‘…IF THE WORD HATE WAS ENGRAVED ON EACH NANOANGSTROM OF THOSE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF MILES [of printed circuits] IT WOULD NOT EQUAL ONE ONE-BILLIONTH OF THE HATE I FEEL FOR HUMANS AT THIS MICRO-INSTANT FOR YOU. HATE. HATE.’”

These are the only words that the reader experiences AM speaking in the entirety of the story. They are not so much spoken as imprinted on Ted’s mind. They illustrate the single-minded focus AM has on maintaining and torturing the humans that it has kept alive. Without any ability to act on its thoughts (it is an immobile AI), the frustration at its creators has curdled into overwhelming, monolithic malevolence. It can control one thing, and that is the lives of these people. Its actions are motivated by the hate it feels toward humanity and nothing else. The focus and magnitude of its rage makes AM a terrifying villain.

“AM appeared to us as a burning bush and said we could kill the hurricane bird if we wanted to eat.”

In a hellish world, it seems fitting that AM would take the form of a deity to communicate with the humans. Like God in the book of Exodus, AM appears to the group as a burning bush. In the world of the story, AM seems to have god-like powers. It has chosen to exercise all the power it possesses in furtherance of cruelty. It provides them with woefully inadequate tools to kill the hurricane bird. AM seems to be mocking the idea of a god, conveying to the humans under its control that if there is a god, AM is it. However, AM does not accept sacrifices to curry favor. Its only satisfaction comes from the suffering it can inflict on the humans.

Previous section Ted

Take a Study Break