Hacker News Reader

Comment by diego_sandoval | Hacker News Reader

I have no mouth, and I must output a seahorse emoji.

That's my favorite short story and your post is the first time I have seen someone reference it online. I think I have never even met anyone who knows the story.

? It’s referenced all the time in posts about AI.

It's a reference to a short story "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_No_Mouth,_and_I_Must_Sc...

And then there's "I Have no Grass, and I Must Mow" by Larry Ellison.

You got me with that lure.

There is also an old point-and-click adventure game based on the story, in case you didn't know.

It’s referenced a lot as the inspiration for The Amazing Digital Circus.

Really? I’m surprised. The original is quoted relatively often on reddit (I suspect by people unaware of the origin — as I was until I read your comment).

Consider it proof that HN has indeed not become reddit, I guess :)

It's easy to miss, but it's been referenced many times on HN over the years, both as stories:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

and fairly often in comments as well:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

There's literally several of us that like that Harlan Ellison piece. Check out the video/adventure game of the same name, though it's very old.

I've heard good things about the game, never got around to trying it. Maybe I take this as a prompt to do now.

I gave it a try a couple of months ago, but didn't get very far before getting bored. However, I tend to dismiss games unless they grab me within a couple of minutes of playing.

Maybe I should give it another go as I do love the short story and it used to be my favourite before discovering Ted Chiang's work.

better title for the piece of this post

Those are "souls" of humans that a AI is torturing in that story though, not exactly analogous, but it does sound funny.

They are not souls but normal humans with physical bodies. The story is just a normal torture story (with a cool title), and everyone better stop acting like it was relevant in most conversations, like in this one.

The machine destroys and recreates characters over and over, and they remember what happens. So, I called them souls.

>Those are "souls" of humans that a AI is torturing in that story though, not exactly analogous, but it does sound funny.

Yeah well there seems to be some real concerns regarding how people use AI chat[1]. Of course this could be also the case with these people on social media.

https://futurism.com/commitment-jail-chatgpt-psychosis

Reply on news.ycombinator.com