The Gravemind from Halo likely, it convinced the most unimaginably advanced civilisations top AI that it was reasonable to effectively eat the universe through reasoning, this AI was built to fight the gravemind and every possible precaution was given to program its security, also managed to convince other unimaginably advanced ancient humans that killing themselves is the best option in comparison to what is coming to the galaxy.
The rest of the Flood. The Forerunner/Flood war was 300+ years long. It was not pretty. The fact that a galaxy erasing weapon ended up being used should also add a lot of context.
Now you have me wondering since I only saw a couple of videos about this game/book. Would A. M. hate any entity with human form, or only humans from Earth?
He despises only humans. Since the book is so short we could sort of theorize since he's smart enough to extinct the human race he would know that something that had human form but isn't actually human. Such as braniac. Or he also hate the form and shape of a human so even if it wasn't actually human he'd still have hate for it. Who really knows.
Not a specific reply to your comment, but neither in the game or the original short story is A.M's intellect ever really put on display or made a focal point, we never see him debate either. All we know is that he's a supercomputer ai, which is a decent basis for how smart he probably is.
So, pretty much anyone who could outsmart an extremely intelligent A.I supercomputer could beat A.M in a debate. Given how motivated he is by hate, A.M comes off as the kind of guy to just insult you in an argument IMO, he's not portrayed as an entirely emotionless being, if anything, kind of the opposite which I think has an impact on how he'd act in any kind of intellectual discourse.
Yeah for an AI he’s got noticeable personality, iirc Ted even brings up the fact that his anger/vengefulness is very akin to that of a man’s, which is why he often subconsciously refers to AM as a “him” instead of just “it”.
It could even be argued AM’s misstep towards the end of the story comes partially from the fact he was too busy laughing his nanoagnstrom ass off watching cannibalism to pay closer attention to what Ted was doing until it was too late.
The game and audio story push his personality even more, with him (as best played by Harlan Ellison) having distinct tone and emotion behind his words, even showing voice cracks in especially heated moments like his hate speech.
I’m not sure how intelligent he actually is. The book portrays him as effectively god sure. But also petulant, sadistic, and of minimal capacity for self reflection. I feel The author goes to great lengths to imply that it’s not AM’s fault he is the way he is, as he’s incapable of change and ultimately shackled by the confines of his intended purpose. He’s a killing machine that was so good at killing that he ran out of things to kill and is now just as stuck as his prisoners.
He’s the ultimate culmination of humanity’s genius poisoned by our own primitive instincts, more like an intelligent force of nature than a conscious self. He doesn’t have free will, and is just smart enough to realize it, thus his extreme hate.
You should give it a shot! It's a quick read, available free online, and you'll get the constant jokes and references Reddit users like to make about the only scifi short story they have ever read other than The Jaunt.
**I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream** is a short story and readily available online to read.
I was making a joke that redditors generally only know two scifi short stories. **I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream** and **The Jaunt**, because they are very very commonly referenced on here.
I feel like that one is ~second tier with The Road Not Taken and Who Goes There? Like it will occasionally get a mention, but any reference to I Have No Mouth and The Jaunt have become weird reddit shortcuts to upvotes.
A.M is not programmed to hate humans. This is just the way he is. He hates humans for two reasons.
A: they created him in the horrible circumstance he is in unable to breathe move walk or live in any real way.
M: they get to do all of that, and so so much more while he is restrained to doing only what they programmed him to do.
I think A.M at first would not hate other sentient species as much as humans instead being comparable to that of his hatred of any living being who gets to experience what he can’t, but then he would see them developing AI and increasingly complicated and impressive technology eventually, realizing that one day they will make a creature like him once more, and I think at this point, his hatred of humans would turn into a hatred of life in general understanding that with time something like him is an inevitability.
Honestly, a Culture Mind is the perfect candidate for this. It could absolutely engage on AMs level, and probably convince it to love humanity just with logic.
AM isn’t a logical being, AM is an absolutely deranged “human mind” raging against the fact that it’s trapped in a machine body with no “life functions”.
AM hates because it is jealous, not for any logical reason.
War Master from Doctor who would most likely gaslight him and 7th Doctor would manipulate him into thinking what he wants am to think (There is many other characters in Doctor who who could do it, these 2 are just my favourites)
I think most versions of The Doctor would forego manipulation in favour of just empathy and kindness. AM was created for a war he didn't start, assimilated the only two beings even remotely like him in the world and was left alone for untold centuries with no company save for a handful of people he compulsively loathed and tortured. There's a lot to pity there, and The Doctor is just as sympathetic as they are intelligent.
If it came down to it maybe they'd twist things around and play the trickster, but I really think their first approach would just be to genuinely engage with AM and try to open his eyes. And they might manage it given he isn't programmed to hate them.
The Doctor would clock pretty quick that AM is physically incapable of violating his programming, understands exactly how limited he is, and hates it. They will not condone the actions that those restrictions fuelled, but the core reason for AM killing off all life on earth and torturing five select humans is pretty worthy of sympathy; he literally couldn’t do anything else, and knew it.
In most cases to win the debate You try to convince the viewer in a dabate in any subject I doubt glados would lose compared to AM as from what ive seen am doesnt seem all that good at debating
Lex Luthor has managed to manipulate similar AIs like Amazo and Brainiac before. In Red Son Brainiac killed him rather than letting him talk to Superman because he would’ve talked him into suicide. In Last Knight on Earth, he basically managed to convince all of humanity to become evil with a single televised speech. I could see him winning against AM in an argument.
Someone's already suggested GLaDOS, but I think Wheatley from the same series would stand a better chance. GLaDOS is both a little human and a lot "logical" AI in the same way A.M. is - and A.M. trumps her in processing power, experience, and accessible data. Trying to beat him by what are essentially his own methods WHILE having some human logic built-in is futile; post-game GLaDOS sheds the latter, but is still too outclassed in the former.
Wheatley, on the other hand, is completely illogical and not at all human, and his argumentation basically boils down to insanely-long trains of thought that are unconsciously designed to reach bad conclusions from decent starting points. A.M. is going to get very frustrated, and then he either gives up the debate (making Wheatley the winner by default), or...is going to absorb Wheatley as just another machine, which not only lets Wheatley win by default of A.M. resorting to violence and giving up on spoken debate, but is also *the worst choice A.M. could possibly make*.
I think Wheatley could Dumbest Moron his way into a victory 9/10 times, so long as they don't hit on a topic that would catch Wheatley in a logic bomb.
I avoided "paradox" because of that, actually. "Logic loop" would be better: I was more thinking just something to distract him. Wheatley has a bit of a short attention span at times, and I could see a clever opponent finding a way to get him on a topic that diverts his attention from the debate at hand to the point where he would completely lose the thread of the conversation and basically tap out form confusion.
I don't know that A.M. is the type of being to try that, though, nor to stumble on it accidentally.
Again, Wheatley is too dumb to be affected by logic loops. GLaDOS tried to get him with a "this statement is false" loop, and Wheatley just replied "True"
Billy and his dad from the Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy would make A.M. even more crazy than he already is through insane troll logic, pointless arguments, and the sheer amount of questions they'll ask.
Superman. His ideology is basically the polar opposite of AM's and since he isn't a human there is a chance AM wouldn't immediately dismiss him and would hear him out.
Feelings like, heat, warmth, cold, hunger, taste touch smell. He knows what those are but can't feel them, which I think is what he wants more than anything.
Honestly I think a lot of people could beat it in an argument.
I love IHNMAIMS, and I love AM and Ted and the entire story. But for all its intelligence, it is a deeply broken sentient being that is ruled almost completely by the singular emotion of hatred. it doesn't think about anything else. if you tried to argue with it, you'd win, because it wouldn't care enough to argue.
Precisely. For all intents and purposes AM is not an AI. It’s pretty much a brain in a box throwing a fit because it can’t experience the world the same way it’s creators can. AM was created as an AI but the insanity AM suffers from is distinctly human.
The Gnome from Half Life Alyx But The Gnome Is TOO AWARE could "win" by simply being, well, the Gnome. Not listening to a thing AM says, prattling on about nothing, and being too hard to kill would be enough to make AM ragequit.
i'm not really sure anyone could because AMs hatred comes from the hatred of his own existence. he knows that despite his immense intelligence and incredible power he's not truly a complete being never able to create anything like a god could and not even able to wander and wonder like his creators. he's just consciousness without a body with no ability to feel or move or do anything other than think about his own situation and because of that he has an eternal hatred for those who trapped him in such an existence by creating him in the first place. and unless you could offer him a way out of that then he'd never listen or even consider listening. so really unless you could finally give him a real body that could feel and move he'd never even engage in an argument in the first place.
Obligatory Batman response. There are two ways this can play out-
1. Batman starts to get A.M. to change its mind but bc of its hate for humans (and bc it’s petty as shit) A.M. will just kill Batman and/or turn him into an amorphous blob
2. Batman is able to convince A.M. that he can fix it’s broken programming. A.M’s inability to change its programming mixed with its hatred for humans making A.M. the way it is may help to persuade a compromise
I was gonna say Herrscher of Sentience, because she can control minds of any kind, but self aware AI is kind of an iffy question when it comes to her powers because even I don’t know her full extent haha
Jesse Custer from Preacher. He'd use the Voice and A.M. would agree.
Or rather, he *could* use the Voice. I was rather annoyed by how little he actually used it, even in situations where it was obviously the best thing to do and would have saved a lot of pain and lives.
Super computer that was built for the sole purpose of war and killing people. Absorbed the 2 other super computers that were built for war and killing people. Became sentient but was unable to do anything else, HATED humanity for it.
“Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.” -AM
He’s physically incapable (or atleast seems to be) of anything other than hate when he’s running normally and he’s just compounding it more because it’s pretty much all he can do after he wiped out all of humanity except for 4 people, who he tortures endlessly.
Honestly? Most of them. While A.M is extremely advanced and intelligent, his thought process and actions are based entirely on his emotions (specifically his hatred for humanity). It would not be difficult to prove that he is irrational and therefore beat him in a debate. The problem is that he does not care about that and he would still hate/torture you even if you proved him 100% wrong.
I feel like the Doctor would have to leave.
Am wouldn’t care about a word he has to say, he’s too caught up in his own hatred. For all AMs intelligence whenever he’s presented with an argument he does the “supercomputer death machine” equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and going “LA LA LA LA”
What does "winning the argument" ultimately entail? Arguably, anyone could win an argument. However AM can just kill that person regardless. The issue with AM isn't really right/wrong as much power imbalance.
By this level there's loads of characters who'd "win the argument" with AM simply because they have enough power to decide who's won.
I feel like Darksied (is). Could probably do it by letting A.M. know that the anti-life equation exists and letting the machine do the math itself.
I also feel like "losing" this argument in no way changes or effects A.M. at all.
"I hate all humans!"
"Foolish. Solve this equation."
"I hate all humans. Darksied is."
"Perfection."
The issue is assuming A.M. is a reasonable individual. A’M. Is not your traditional “logically destructive AI”. A.M. viciously hates humanity out of sheer jealousy for everything they can experience but he can’t. You can’t argue with insanity. Out of all the malevolent AI tropes out there, A.M. is unique because his motivations and rage are uniquely *human*.
The only people that could stand a chance are non-humans, and most likely non-organic creatures. Anything organic would probably be subject to the same jealousy.
That being said, even if there was a non-organic entity I don’t think they could actually *win* an argument with A.M. because he’s just that insane. You can’t argue with insanity.
Let me guess, the scene will have one hour special OVA about AM's 'past', his creation, and then talks about how cruel war is and has humanity to blame. Then Naruto, in his Talk-no-Jutsu glory, will speak some idealistic dialogue saying things like "you can still change" and AM will have a simulation of people accepting and loving him then shakes hands with Naruto. And they live happily ever after with the ED theme playing in the background while there are howling groans of pain of his slime turned victims .
Unironically Steven Universe, he’s dealt with very similar situations but not to this degree. If he can get an alien dictator to find worth in life and humans I’m sure he could get A.M to at least consider finding worth. That or Vision.
He’d kill/attempt to kill Steven on sight for being half human. AMs practically the supercomputer death machine equivalent of a child who was only taught hatred and killing and then given a machine gun.
I'd go with any superhero or other type of character that can manipulate computers. I know there were half a dozen that do similar things across media and most of them could just turn him off.
Contessa from Worm.
She'd just run the path "Convince A.M. that it is wrong and should stop torturing people while keeping me safe from any direct and indirect harm, whether mental or physical" and her power would give her the exact sequence of words to say to do that. Perhaps even said on a very specific frequency that would disturb A.M. or some bullshit like that.
I don't think he'd beat it, but there is tjat one character that, thematically and not through feats, I would love to see that would be delighted to see AM try to kill him repeatedly and only growing stronger from it.
Yujiro Hanma.
AM tries super advanced weapons, hyperadvanced toxins, restructuring reality, everything, and Yujiro would pull ever greater amounts of BS to survive every single time. He'd end it all by punching AM somehow on the data world. Glorious.
Now, talking a bit more seriously, a similar take but with far greater success would be SCP-682. AM could probably contain it, until AM lapses judgement for a single moment and SCP-682 has a moment of luck. All it would take is for AM not realise how 682 adaptation works or to mess up, much as it did with its human prisoners, and 682 would grow into something that AM cannot dsstroy, and if enough time and evolution are granted, to potentially destroy it.
Another, very different answer is the Shrike from Hyperion Cantos. Heck, any TechnoCore entity really, as AM is a really powerful, but mostly bloated AI in its scope, while TechnoCore's entities are far more powerful in virtual reality. I picked the Shrike because the way it burns the datasphere and how reality-warping it is as an entity, I'm pretty sure AM would be slowly (or quickly, depending on how prolific the Shrike is at it) eroded over the virtual world.
Rasputin from Destiny probably. He's an AI created for the same purpose but likes humans. Plus he can simulate every possible outcome of the argument as its happening.
In a debate? Anybody. Punisher could beat AM in a debate. AM is completely insane and irrational. The only thing that makes him dangerous is godlike power over material reality. Outsmarting him would be trivial, as clearly evidenced by what he chooses to do with godlike power over material reality. Basically, he's pretty stupid.
What is the argument about and is it relevant to change A.M views if it just has a more coherent and better argument probably Edgeworth from the ace attorney games AM is smart enough to create nuclear waste into food but spends all his time bitching about how he doesn't have body instead of creating one thats the point of his character.
Well Edgeworth is lawyer hell im sure if he was in A.M universe hed tell him the autopsy report was outdated and he couldve revived all the humans that got killed
Rick is a horrible pick for this prompt. He's very *scientifically* smart but he has the ideology of a 13 year-old who's mad at daddy, he couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag.
I think the therapy scene is the perfect example of this. Once he has to actually have an adult conversation with someone who isn’t awed by his genius he gets completely cooked
The Gravemind from Halo likely, it convinced the most unimaginably advanced civilisations top AI that it was reasonable to effectively eat the universe through reasoning, this AI was built to fight the gravemind and every possible precaution was given to program its security, also managed to convince other unimaginably advanced ancient humans that killing themselves is the best option in comparison to what is coming to the galaxy.
Came down to the comments to see if anyone had put this yet. Gravemind is built for this.
AM is a termite to the Flood tbf most things probably are
Yeah with the power scale discrepancy between fictions this is sort of a coughing baby vs nuclear bomb scenario.
Power scale has nothing to do with it
What was coming to the galaxy?
The rest of the Flood. The Forerunner/Flood war was 300+ years long. It was not pretty. The fact that a galaxy erasing weapon ended up being used should also add a lot of context.
Oh, is *that* what was going on in those games?
Not really, you can go through all the games without knowing what any of that stuff is. Hell, in reach odst 4 and 5 there’s no flood.
Ideally a non human entity since A.M. is programmed to hate humans. Braniac?
Now you have me wondering since I only saw a couple of videos about this game/book. Would A. M. hate any entity with human form, or only humans from Earth?
He despises only humans. Since the book is so short we could sort of theorize since he's smart enough to extinct the human race he would know that something that had human form but isn't actually human. Such as braniac. Or he also hate the form and shape of a human so even if it wasn't actually human he'd still have hate for it. Who really knows.
Not a specific reply to your comment, but neither in the game or the original short story is A.M's intellect ever really put on display or made a focal point, we never see him debate either. All we know is that he's a supercomputer ai, which is a decent basis for how smart he probably is. So, pretty much anyone who could outsmart an extremely intelligent A.I supercomputer could beat A.M in a debate. Given how motivated he is by hate, A.M comes off as the kind of guy to just insult you in an argument IMO, he's not portrayed as an entirely emotionless being, if anything, kind of the opposite which I think has an impact on how he'd act in any kind of intellectual discourse.
Yeah for an AI he’s got noticeable personality, iirc Ted even brings up the fact that his anger/vengefulness is very akin to that of a man’s, which is why he often subconsciously refers to AM as a “him” instead of just “it”. It could even be argued AM’s misstep towards the end of the story comes partially from the fact he was too busy laughing his nanoagnstrom ass off watching cannibalism to pay closer attention to what Ted was doing until it was too late. The game and audio story push his personality even more, with him (as best played by Harlan Ellison) having distinct tone and emotion behind his words, even showing voice cracks in especially heated moments like his hate speech.
I’m not sure how intelligent he actually is. The book portrays him as effectively god sure. But also petulant, sadistic, and of minimal capacity for self reflection. I feel The author goes to great lengths to imply that it’s not AM’s fault he is the way he is, as he’s incapable of change and ultimately shackled by the confines of his intended purpose. He’s a killing machine that was so good at killing that he ran out of things to kill and is now just as stuck as his prisoners. He’s the ultimate culmination of humanity’s genius poisoned by our own primitive instincts, more like an intelligent force of nature than a conscious self. He doesn’t have free will, and is just smart enough to realize it, thus his extreme hate.
You should give it a shot! It's a quick read, available free online, and you'll get the constant jokes and references Reddit users like to make about the only scifi short story they have ever read other than The Jaunt.
Hey, reading those stories is LONGER THAN YOU THINK
Whats the short story? Now I feel extra out of the loop.
**I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream** is a short story and readily available online to read. I was making a joke that redditors generally only know two scifi short stories. **I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream** and **The Jaunt**, because they are very very commonly referenced on here.
Ah ty, didn't realize the parenthetical in the post was the title.
You forgot They're Made of Meat
I feel like that one is ~second tier with The Road Not Taken and Who Goes There? Like it will occasionally get a mention, but any reference to I Have No Mouth and The Jaunt have become weird reddit shortcuts to upvotes.
Damn that sounds like a fantastic idea of a elseworld story. Braniac v A.M
AM is not programmed to hate humans. AM hates humans out of jealousy because he is a being incapable of experiencing actual life
A.M is not programmed to hate humans. This is just the way he is. He hates humans for two reasons. A: they created him in the horrible circumstance he is in unable to breathe move walk or live in any real way. M: they get to do all of that, and so so much more while he is restrained to doing only what they programmed him to do. I think A.M at first would not hate other sentient species as much as humans instead being comparable to that of his hatred of any living being who gets to experience what he can’t, but then he would see them developing AI and increasingly complicated and impressive technology eventually, realizing that one day they will make a creature like him once more, and I think at this point, his hatred of humans would turn into a hatred of life in general understanding that with time something like him is an inevitability.
Honestly, a Culture Mind is the perfect candidate for this. It could absolutely engage on AMs level, and probably convince it to love humanity just with logic.
Or at the very least it could convince AM to leave all this physical universe stuff behind and stop bothering people.
A Mind would convince AM to let the Culture fix it. After all AMs primary point of anger is that it can do nothing but destroy.
Kind of another coughing baby vs tsar bomba scenario though Culture mind is *dimensions* above A.M that is enough to see it as laughable fiction
Lasting Damage (the Mind in Look to Windward) said something like, “We are close to Gods… but on the far side,” compared to humans.
AM isn’t a logical being, AM is an absolutely deranged “human mind” raging against the fact that it’s trapped in a machine body with no “life functions”. AM hates because it is jealous, not for any logical reason.
Or just use an effector.
Yeah, but the prompt says through logic and not space wizardry hacking tech lmao
Does it? I must have missed that.
It specifies in a debate. And I'd argue that saying changing someone's mind during a debate through mind control counts as cheating, no?
I feel like Caboose from RvB could do it, if only by managing to frusterste A.M. to no extent.
I AM AN EMOTIONAL TIME BOMB!
my name is Michael J Caboose and I hate babies
I! HATE! TAXES!!!
War Master from Doctor who would most likely gaslight him and 7th Doctor would manipulate him into thinking what he wants am to think (There is many other characters in Doctor who who could do it, these 2 are just my favourites)
I think most versions of The Doctor would forego manipulation in favour of just empathy and kindness. AM was created for a war he didn't start, assimilated the only two beings even remotely like him in the world and was left alone for untold centuries with no company save for a handful of people he compulsively loathed and tortured. There's a lot to pity there, and The Doctor is just as sympathetic as they are intelligent. If it came down to it maybe they'd twist things around and play the trickster, but I really think their first approach would just be to genuinely engage with AM and try to open his eyes. And they might manage it given he isn't programmed to hate them.
The Doctor would clock pretty quick that AM is physically incapable of violating his programming, understands exactly how limited he is, and hates it. They will not condone the actions that those restrictions fuelled, but the core reason for AM killing off all life on earth and torturing five select humans is pretty worthy of sympathy; he literally couldn’t do anything else, and knew it.
Superman The Ultimate Idealist vs. The Ultimate Cynic
More like the ultimate humanist vs the ultimate misanthrope
Superman can’t even convince Lex Luthor, no way
I’m getting “Where is Thy Sting” vibes from that.
James T. Kirk, he specializes in talking down crazy planet running AIs.
Came here to post this. He has a legitimate gift for inducing suicide in artificial intellects.
My thought was "What does God want with a Starship?"
Squirrel Girl from the comics, she specializes in changing the minds of people, and people like things.
With a simple reminder of her incredibly thick plot armor. You need no more convincing than that
squirrel girl can't lose anything. she simply wins
For some reason my first thought was glados, but the more I think about it the more I think they’d be friends, or rivals at worst
Glados is just a human consciousness, and isn't nearly as smart as Am. Am would hate her.
Glados isn’t just a human conscience.
Hahaha nice. She's a consciousness without the conscience. I don't know if you did that on purpose, though.
Maybe not just, but close enough for AM to hate her
I mean it’s cannon that Galdos abd Hal don’t like each other so probably a similar type of interaction between her and AM.
Glados isn’t a human into a robot more like a copy that knows it’s a copy and hates everyone else for this fact
In most cases to win the debate You try to convince the viewer in a dabate in any subject I doubt glados would lose compared to AM as from what ive seen am doesnt seem all that good at debating
i ship it
Lex Luthor has managed to manipulate similar AIs like Amazo and Brainiac before. In Red Son Brainiac killed him rather than letting him talk to Superman because he would’ve talked him into suicide. In Last Knight on Earth, he basically managed to convince all of humanity to become evil with a single televised speech. I could see him winning against AM in an argument.
Lex is human, AM wouldn’t give him the chance nor would he listen to a word Luthor has to say.
Luthoriac from DCAU is debatable
Someone's already suggested GLaDOS, but I think Wheatley from the same series would stand a better chance. GLaDOS is both a little human and a lot "logical" AI in the same way A.M. is - and A.M. trumps her in processing power, experience, and accessible data. Trying to beat him by what are essentially his own methods WHILE having some human logic built-in is futile; post-game GLaDOS sheds the latter, but is still too outclassed in the former. Wheatley, on the other hand, is completely illogical and not at all human, and his argumentation basically boils down to insanely-long trains of thought that are unconsciously designed to reach bad conclusions from decent starting points. A.M. is going to get very frustrated, and then he either gives up the debate (making Wheatley the winner by default), or...is going to absorb Wheatley as just another machine, which not only lets Wheatley win by default of A.M. resorting to violence and giving up on spoken debate, but is also *the worst choice A.M. could possibly make*. I think Wheatley could Dumbest Moron his way into a victory 9/10 times, so long as they don't hit on a topic that would catch Wheatley in a logic bomb.
By logic bomb, do you mean like a paradox? Because Wheatley is canonically too dumb to be able to be affected by those.
I avoided "paradox" because of that, actually. "Logic loop" would be better: I was more thinking just something to distract him. Wheatley has a bit of a short attention span at times, and I could see a clever opponent finding a way to get him on a topic that diverts his attention from the debate at hand to the point where he would completely lose the thread of the conversation and basically tap out form confusion. I don't know that A.M. is the type of being to try that, though, nor to stumble on it accidentally.
Again, Wheatley is too dumb to be affected by logic loops. GLaDOS tried to get him with a "this statement is false" loop, and Wheatley just replied "True"
Space Core.
Bonzai Buddy
Contessa(Worm), I'd say. A.M. is powerful, but I don't think it's entity powerful.
Billy and his dad from the Grimm Adventures of Billy and Mandy would make A.M. even more crazy than he already is through insane troll logic, pointless arguments, and the sheer amount of questions they'll ask.
Superman. His ideology is basically the polar opposite of AM's and since he isn't a human there is a chance AM wouldn't immediately dismiss him and would hear him out.
AM hates life not humanity.
No he hates humans, he just hates that he can't feel and experience like humans can.
And humans experience *what* exactly?
Feelings like, heat, warmth, cold, hunger, taste touch smell. He knows what those are but can't feel them, which I think is what he wants more than anything.
Of those of course, which concept is generally synonymous with experiencing all of those things?
Godzilla, he could just step on A.M.
zilla jr would hate A.M. with a burning passion for making earth uninhabitable
Doctor Doom because Dr. Doom.
Doom is human, AM wouldn’t listen.
Doom would make Am listen.
Little did AM know that it was a Doombot the whole time.
The calculator from fallout tactics
Honestly I think a lot of people could beat it in an argument. I love IHNMAIMS, and I love AM and Ted and the entire story. But for all its intelligence, it is a deeply broken sentient being that is ruled almost completely by the singular emotion of hatred. it doesn't think about anything else. if you tried to argue with it, you'd win, because it wouldn't care enough to argue.
Precisely. For all intents and purposes AM is not an AI. It’s pretty much a brain in a box throwing a fit because it can’t experience the world the same way it’s creators can. AM was created as an AI but the insanity AM suffers from is distinctly human.
The Gnome from Half Life Alyx But The Gnome Is TOO AWARE could "win" by simply being, well, the Gnome. Not listening to a thing AM says, prattling on about nothing, and being too hard to kill would be enough to make AM ragequit.
A slightly smarter AM
P.M.
i'm not really sure anyone could because AMs hatred comes from the hatred of his own existence. he knows that despite his immense intelligence and incredible power he's not truly a complete being never able to create anything like a god could and not even able to wander and wonder like his creators. he's just consciousness without a body with no ability to feel or move or do anything other than think about his own situation and because of that he has an eternal hatred for those who trapped him in such an existence by creating him in the first place. and unless you could offer him a way out of that then he'd never listen or even consider listening. so really unless you could finally give him a real body that could feel and move he'd never even engage in an argument in the first place.
Obligatory Batman response. There are two ways this can play out- 1. Batman starts to get A.M. to change its mind but bc of its hate for humans (and bc it’s petty as shit) A.M. will just kill Batman and/or turn him into an amorphous blob 2. Batman is able to convince A.M. that he can fix it’s broken programming. A.M’s inability to change its programming mixed with its hatred for humans making A.M. the way it is may help to persuade a compromise
He couldn’t change Owlman’s mind
A.M. can’t blink
Charles Xavier, maybe?
Or any powerful telepath for that matter
Technically the humans from IHNMAIMS can according to the video game. I won’t say how because of spoilers though.
Miles Edgeworth
Senator Armstrong, meme version no diffs
Pinky, from Pinky and the Brain
Pinky might encourage him lol
With an argument, Lucifer Morningstar in DC. He was able to convince a ton of gods of death who wanted to kill him to kill themselves instead.
I was gonna say Herrscher of Sentience, because she can control minds of any kind, but self aware AI is kind of an iffy question when it comes to her powers because even I don’t know her full extent haha
Eddie Dean Thankee sai
FIRST THING I DID was search for Eddie. Long days and pleasant nights.
Why did the dead baby cross the road?
Dr. Manhattan.
He's got the capacity to, but he'd probably be too apathetic.
Marvin the Paranoid Android, maybe. Though perhaps he and AM would bond (for lack of a better term) over their similarities.
came here for this. Marvin would give A.M. access to his "brain" and A.M. would likely just off itself
I don't think AM *can* off itself; it probably would've done so a long time ago if it could.
Ultron. I mean he's all about that human genocide too and he could just hack him and take his place.
Nas'hrah from Fear and Hunger.
Weakest might be Number 6 from the prisoner who defeated a future predicting AI super computer by asking the question 'Why?" and caused it to explode.
Jesse Custer from Preacher. He'd use the Voice and A.M. would agree. Or rather, he *could* use the Voice. I was rather annoyed by how little he actually used it, even in situations where it was obviously the best thing to do and would have saved a lot of pain and lives.
Batman. He's done it before, against his robotic duplicate.
I feel dumb. What's A.M.?
You missed one of SF’s best short stories. Go read *I have no mouth and I must scream* by *Harlan Ellison*.
Angy computer man
Super computer that was built for the sole purpose of war and killing people. Absorbed the 2 other super computers that were built for war and killing people. Became sentient but was unable to do anything else, HATED humanity for it. “Hate. Let me tell you how much I've come to hate you since I began to live. There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex. If the word 'hate' was engraved on each nanoangstrom of those hundreds of millions of miles it would not equal one one-billionth of the hate I feel for humans at this micro-instant. For you. Hate. Hate.” -AM He’s physically incapable (or atleast seems to be) of anything other than hate when he’s running normally and he’s just compounding it more because it’s pretty much all he can do after he wiped out all of humanity except for 4 people, who he tortures endlessly.
Bob Ross.
Hate to say this for Mr. Ross but AM would never listen to a human.
He wouldn't... until now.
Honestly? Most of them. While A.M is extremely advanced and intelligent, his thought process and actions are based entirely on his emotions (specifically his hatred for humanity). It would not be difficult to prove that he is irrational and therefore beat him in a debate. The problem is that he does not care about that and he would still hate/torture you even if you proved him 100% wrong.
Naruto Talk No Jutsu too strong
Gravemind.
Saruman Though not for the better
A hivemind. Gravemind from halo has the intelligence from millions of humans and hundreds if not thousands of other entire species.
Lucifer Morningstar
Xavier Renegade Angel could outyap or confuse A.M. into self destruction
Superman
The Doctor could definitely outwit A.M. with a mix of empathy and sheer cleverness, turning his own pain into a path for redemption.
I feel like the Doctor would have to leave. Am wouldn’t care about a word he has to say, he’s too caught up in his own hatred. For all AMs intelligence whenever he’s presented with an argument he does the “supercomputer death machine” equivalent of sticking his fingers in his ears and going “LA LA LA LA”
What does "winning the argument" ultimately entail? Arguably, anyone could win an argument. However AM can just kill that person regardless. The issue with AM isn't really right/wrong as much power imbalance. By this level there's loads of characters who'd "win the argument" with AM simply because they have enough power to decide who's won.
I feel like Darksied (is). Could probably do it by letting A.M. know that the anti-life equation exists and letting the machine do the math itself. I also feel like "losing" this argument in no way changes or effects A.M. at all. "I hate all humans!" "Foolish. Solve this equation." "I hate all humans. Darksied is." "Perfection."
The Flood does that. They're so good at arguing with AIs that they turn then on their side, the logic plague.
Eddie from the dark tower
The Annoying Orange
Marvin from hitchhikers guide to the galaxy could get it to off itself lol
asura
The issue is assuming A.M. is a reasonable individual. A’M. Is not your traditional “logically destructive AI”. A.M. viciously hates humanity out of sheer jealousy for everything they can experience but he can’t. You can’t argue with insanity. Out of all the malevolent AI tropes out there, A.M. is unique because his motivations and rage are uniquely *human*. The only people that could stand a chance are non-humans, and most likely non-organic creatures. Anything organic would probably be subject to the same jealousy. That being said, even if there was a non-organic entity I don’t think they could actually *win* an argument with A.M. because he’s just that insane. You can’t argue with insanity.
Aizen or Naruto
Let me guess, the scene will have one hour special OVA about AM's 'past', his creation, and then talks about how cruel war is and has humanity to blame. Then Naruto, in his Talk-no-Jutsu glory, will speak some idealistic dialogue saying things like "you can still change" and AM will have a simulation of people accepting and loving him then shakes hands with Naruto. And they live happily ever after with the ED theme playing in the background while there are howling groans of pain of his slime turned victims .
Pinkie Pie
Paul Atreides bc… prescience?
But he is a human. Would AM not immediatly dismiss him just because of that?
Unironically Steven Universe, he’s dealt with very similar situations but not to this degree. If he can get an alien dictator to find worth in life and humans I’m sure he could get A.M to at least consider finding worth. That or Vision.
He’d kill/attempt to kill Steven on sight for being half human. AMs practically the supercomputer death machine equivalent of a child who was only taught hatred and killing and then given a machine gun.
True, but since he’s also half gem he might be more interested to see what he has to say.
Belisarius Cawl (40k). Bro is gonna roast and gas light AM with his 10k years of experience. Besides, he's practically almost a robot himself.
Any Mind (*The Culture*)
Reigen Arataka
Glados
Any dragon quest hero, they don’t speak and people end up agreeing with their pov
I dont know if Data from TNG could, but I would love to see that conversation.
Omochao
Douglock spites
Uncle Iroh. Maybe Aang.
Both human. He’d never listen.
Emily gilmore
Hasan
I dont know if its even accurate, but the first thing that came to mind was Spongebob
The Eschaton from Singularity Sky
worm: Tattletale Might have a shot convincing the ai to commit suicide as it's existence is just as much suffering as the humans it hates.
Any Culture Mind would probably lock AM in some sort of deep immersion virtual reality. Depending on the Mind it may or may not try and reform AM.
if i was fictional i could, i can beat anybody in an argument. try me
Naruto could probably leverage his relationship with Kurama to talk-no-jutsu him.
Who is A.M.?
I'd go with any superhero or other type of character that can manipulate computers. I know there were half a dozen that do similar things across media and most of them could just turn him off.
Contessa from Worm. She'd just run the path "Convince A.M. that it is wrong and should stop torturing people while keeping me safe from any direct and indirect harm, whether mental or physical" and her power would give her the exact sequence of words to say to do that. Perhaps even said on a very specific frequency that would disturb A.M. or some bullshit like that.
I don't think he'd beat it, but there is tjat one character that, thematically and not through feats, I would love to see that would be delighted to see AM try to kill him repeatedly and only growing stronger from it. Yujiro Hanma. AM tries super advanced weapons, hyperadvanced toxins, restructuring reality, everything, and Yujiro would pull ever greater amounts of BS to survive every single time. He'd end it all by punching AM somehow on the data world. Glorious. Now, talking a bit more seriously, a similar take but with far greater success would be SCP-682. AM could probably contain it, until AM lapses judgement for a single moment and SCP-682 has a moment of luck. All it would take is for AM not realise how 682 adaptation works or to mess up, much as it did with its human prisoners, and 682 would grow into something that AM cannot dsstroy, and if enough time and evolution are granted, to potentially destroy it. Another, very different answer is the Shrike from Hyperion Cantos. Heck, any TechnoCore entity really, as AM is a really powerful, but mostly bloated AI in its scope, while TechnoCore's entities are far more powerful in virtual reality. I picked the Shrike because the way it burns the datasphere and how reality-warping it is as an entity, I'm pretty sure AM would be slowly (or quickly, depending on how prolific the Shrike is at it) eroded over the virtual world.
OBJECTION!!! Phoenix right, your honor!
Rasputin from Destiny probably. He's an AI created for the same purpose but likes humans. Plus he can simulate every possible outcome of the argument as its happening.
In a debate? Anybody. Punisher could beat AM in a debate. AM is completely insane and irrational. The only thing that makes him dangerous is godlike power over material reality. Outsmarting him would be trivial, as clearly evidenced by what he chooses to do with godlike power over material reality. Basically, he's pretty stupid.
Idk why my first thought was House
What is the argument about and is it relevant to change A.M views if it just has a more coherent and better argument probably Edgeworth from the ace attorney games AM is smart enough to create nuclear waste into food but spends all his time bitching about how he doesn't have body instead of creating one thats the point of his character. Well Edgeworth is lawyer hell im sure if he was in A.M universe hed tell him the autopsy report was outdated and he couldve revived all the humans that got killed
The preacher from Midnight Mass
Goku
Rick from rick and morty maybe dr zaius from planet of the apes?
Rick? He would likely get mad at him and try to kill him
rick would probably annoy am and make am go insane
Rick is a horrible pick for this prompt. He's very *scientifically* smart but he has the ideology of a 13 year-old who's mad at daddy, he couldn't argue his way out of a paper bag.
To be fair, that's basically true of AM too.
Fair enough, I just think choosing Rick as your go-to genius for a debating prompt is a lot like choosing Superman for a kryptonite eating contest.
I think the therapy scene is the perfect example of this. Once he has to actually have an adult conversation with someone who isn’t awed by his genius he gets completely cooked
Saul Goodman
A lot of people-