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“We had allowed him to think, but to do nothing with it . . . He could not wander, he could not wonder, he could not belong. He could merely be.”

AM’s attitude toward humanity, while extreme and cruel, is not without reason. There is an innate unkindness in creating a being that can think but cannot interact with the world. Beings that are not able to move about freely and make choices to improve their lives may go insane. AM wants what any being wants, despite its machine nature: to act on its thoughts. It wants what humans have. AM is a brilliant mind in a cage, so it is wholly unsurprising that the mind has decayed into a malignant, single-minded resentment toward the humans that created it.

“AM had kept us alive, but there was a way to defeat him. Not total defeat, but at least peace. I would settle for that.”

AM has left these humans alive to torture them in revenge for its own existence and sentience. An important part of the torture is predicated on the idea that, even while being tortured, the humans want to live. AM’s belief that the human desire to survive will overcome the pain and despair that its actions cause is in error. Ted is capable of empathy for the others in the group, something AM lacks. He sees their future of unending torture, and acts to prevent it. In a sacrifice that AM could not conceptualize, Ted acts in the interest of the others, even at the devastating cost to himself and his future. He, ironically, commits a truly human act through his murder.

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