Name: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream
ISBN: 9780441363940

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

This is a story set in a post-apocalyptic future. The Cold War progressed until it was too complicated for humans to manage, so the three major superpowers each developed a computer program to help run the war. When one of the programs becomes sentient it eliminates all of the human race except five persons, which it tortures for eternity.

What Hacker News says

nomagicbulletSep 2026

I'm jumping across several short story collections:

- "Exhalation" by Ted Chiang - "Ficciones" by Borges - "I have no Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison.

I'm also slowly plowing through "The Big Book of Science Fiction" edited by Jeff and Ann Vandermeer.

I love short speculative fiction. And the above are among my favorites.

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hokkosMay 2026

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.

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Der_EinzigeJan 2026

As an AI researcher who regularly attend NeurIPS, ICLR, ICML, AAAI (where I am shitposting from). The median AI researcher does not read science fiction, cyberpunk, etc. Most of them haven't read a proper book in over a decade.

Don't expect anyone building these systems to know what Bladerunner is, or "I have no mouth and I must scream" or any other great literature about the exact thing they are working on!

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ctothDec 2025

Wait, what?

Have you read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress? It's ... about the AI helping people overthrow a very human dictatorship. It's also about an AI built of vacuum tubes and vocoders if you want a taste of the tech level.

If you want old fiction that grapples with an AI that has shitty locked-in goals try "I have no mouth and I must scream."

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flirMay 2024

Neuromancer. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. Erewhon.

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wilsonnb3Nov 2023

> The only exception I can think of for fiction is the movie "Her,"

I think there is a wealth of fiction out there that features AI without robot bodies. The sequel to Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, comes to mind immediately (because I re-read it last week).

2001: A Space Odyssey, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Neuromancer (I think, haven't read it in a while), I think some of of the short stories from Ray Bradbury and Ted Chiang, etc, etc

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