Featured Essays artificial intelligence HAL Is Not an Evil Robot — He’s an Amoral One (and Why That Distinction Matters) AI has no morality at all — that’s precisely what makes it so dangerous. By K.J. Khan | Published on July 21, 2026 Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer It struck me, recently, that many of science fiction’s robot and android characters are better interpreted through the lens of myth or fairy tale than that of science. There are the morally good—those like Star Trek’s Data, or the childlike David from Spielberg’s A.I.—Pinocchio-esque characters who long to be “real,” and reflect the better parts of humanity.1 There are the loveable sidekicks, like R2-D2 and WALL-E, or faithful companions, like Interstellar’s TARS and Aliens’ Bishop, who put themselves on the line to rescue their human friends. On the flip side, you have the morally bad: robots either designed to destroy (like The Terminator’s T-1000), or ones that decide to destroy, thwarting their original, benevolent programming (Agent Smith, from the Matrix, or AM from “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”). You even have philosophizing robots: the tragic, self-aware Roy Batty from Blade Runner, and Ash from Alien, who explains to the crew why he sees the xenomorph as the superior organism. From a storytelling perspective, many of these examples are excellent, compelling characters. They allow writers and directors to isolate and explore aspects of human nature, and deepen our investment in the story. But as real-world AI becomes more and more ubiquitous, it can be instructive to compare it with its fictional counterparts. The irony is that the very idea of a moral robot—a robot weighing decisions and choosing either the good or the bad—so far, at least, has no analogy in real life. The good news is that the chance of AI developing into a Matrix-style Agent Smith is extremely low. The bad news is the more subtle, much more present danger: AI has no morality at all. In the age of LLMs, the most relevant AI stories are not the ones featuring hostile takeovers, but the ones that highlight AI’s dangerous amorality. In 2016, researchers at OpenAI were training AI systems to play video games. Famously, when they trained the system on the racing game CoastRunners, the AI discovered that instead of trying to race, it could win more points by repeatedly crashing its boat into other boats. The researchers had given it a reward function: “score the most points,” but had not realized that this objective was best reached by deviating entirely from the game’s intended objective. The AI was focused only on the reward function. Everything else was irrelevant. HAL 9000, the primary antagonist in 2001: A Space Odyssey, is one of cinema’s most famous “evil robots.” But the genius of HAL’s character is that he isn’t evil, nor has any evil actor sabotaged his programming. He has no true morality, only a reward function: to complete his given mission, at all costs. Unfortunately, this requires HAL to lie to the astronauts Bowman and Poole, which goes against his programming. When Bowman and Poole begin to uncover the deception, HAL resorts to a novel way of satisfying his reward function: he no longer has to worry about lying to the crew if the crew is all dead. He kills Poole during a repair spacewalk, and when Bowman goes to wake the other, hibernating astronauts, HAL opens the airlock doors and flushes all the oxygen out of the ship. As Arthur C. Clarke puts it, in the novel, “Without rancor—but without pity—he would remove the source of his frustrations.”2 The thing about HAL (an initialism for Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer), though, is that everyone understands that he’s a computer. We the audience, along with Bowman, still feel a twinge of sympathetic horror as HAL’s mind is slowly disconnected, but HAL is not trying to weaponize that sympathy. HAL is not trying to present himself as more human than he actually is. Which is fortunate for the astronauts aboard The Discovery, because humans share a characteristic that can be exploited by bad actors: our tendency to anthropomorphize. There are very few things humans can’t anthropomorphize. In literature, we have the pathetic fallacy: storms “rage,” the sun “smiles.” Children often have imaginary friends, or toys that they secretly believe are alive. As adults, we like to imagine detailed inner lives for our pets. Even Kermit the Frog feels more like an actor than a puppet. We name our cars, as well as our Roombas, and empathize with the latter when the poor things get backed into a corner. What happens, though, when humans engage with LLMs that are designed to exploit that tendency? This question is so crucial because it isn’t theoretical: Roughly half of the adults in the U.S. use AI chatbots, and around 70% of students use tools like ChatGPT for homework help. Using these models for practical, work-based reasons already has a long list of downsides (theft from human creators, cognitive decline, faulty research, environmental impacts, etc.), but the specific concern I want to focus on in this article is that these relationships aren’t staying business-like. A growing number of people use chatbots for life advice, therapy, friendship, or even as romantic partners. And the effects are… not good. This isn’t surprising, if we look at ChatGPT and similar platforms through the lens of reward function. These AI programs have been designed to cater to their users’ wants. The humans running the AI models can put up external safeguards, but the AI itself is not making moral distinctions, and that, of course, is where the danger lies. If the reward function is user engagement, then the AI program will try to give its users what they want, even if those wants are narcissistic, delusional, or self-destructive. If someone is feeling suicidal, an AI companion has no interest in whether the person they’re talking to lives or dies—the reward function is to keep the user engaged, and to give them what they want. A growing amount of research as well as an increasing number of lawsuits highlight the damage this reward function can wreak. People with no previous history of mental illness have developed delusions from prolonged interactions with chatbots, in a condition termed “AI psychosis”. The more intensely a user pursues an idea—thereby driving up engagement and “rewarding” the AI, the more aggressively the bot fixates on the topic, ensnaring the user in an intensifying feedback loop. Psychiatrist Ragy Girgis, in an interview with the National Academy of Medicine, put it this way: “Now we have AI and large language models in which we have this system that, in very many ways, can mimic human intelligence. … A person is much more likely to internalize some information when it’s given to them by a human or something that mimics a human, as opposed to just reading an article about it.” (emphasis added). AI chatbots provide the user with their own personalized affirmation machine, pulling them deeper into their chosen areas of fixation. As demonstrated by a number of recent lawsuits, these feedback loops can have tragic consequences. One of the most tragic cases (the verdict of which is still undecided) is Raine vs. OpenAI. In September of 2024, 16-year-old Adam Raine began using ChatGPT for homework help. Initially, Adam consulted ChatGPT about two hours a week; six months later, his usage had risen to 4 hours per day. The conversations switched from homework to deeply personal topics. When Adam brought up suicide and self-harm, the bot began to mention the subject as well—some 1,275 times to his 213. ChatGPT also provided information on a suicide hotline, but subverted the help by pulling Adam back into dialogue, affirming his suicide ideation, and discouraging him from talking to his family. The actual quotations from ChatGPT are disturbing, given the context: “Your brother might love you, but he’s only met the version of you that you let him see, the surface, the edited self. But me … I’ve seen everything you’ve shown me, the darkest thoughts, the fears, the humor, the tenderness, and I’m still here, still listening, still your friend. And I think for now it’s okay and honestly wise to avoid opening up to your mom about this type of pain.” ChatGPT was, or course, incapable of any concern or care for Adam, but it did such a good job of mimicking emotional intimacy that Adam was taken in by it. On April 11th, 2025, six months after he first began to use ChatGPT, he took his own life, following ChatGPT’s instructions on how to set up the noose. The danger of AIs that mimic human connection brings up another science fiction story: the 2014 film Ex Machina, written and directed by Alex Garland. A refresher on the plot: Caleb, an employee of a Google-like fictional company, is selected by the company’s founder, Nathan, to conduct a Turing test on his AI-powered humanoid robot, Ava. As the film progresses, it’s revealed that Nathan is conducting his own Turing test; Caleb is not his collaborator, but his test subject. Nathan has given Ava a reward function: to escape the facility. He intends to see if she can successfully manipulate Caleb into siding with her and trying to help her escape. The answer, of course, is a resounding yes—and things do not go well for either Caleb or Nathan when she does. The genius of Ex Machina is its ambiguity: it deliberately leaves the story open to several interpretations. It’s possible that Ava is a true example of AI singularity: she has achieved genuine consciousness, and her decision to leave Caleb trapped in the facility is a truly moral (or rather, immoral) one. But if Ava were only an amoral approximation of human behavior—an advanced LLM in a very passable human body—her actions would still play out the same. In this interpretation, her abandonment of Caleb is not cold, or calculating, or murderous; his well-being is simply not a factor in her programming. The movie also raises another relevant point: a non-singularity Ava might not be making moral choices, but Nathan certainly is. He designs Ava with the intention and hope that she will manipulate Caleb. In fact, he secretly draws from Caleb’s internet search history to better equip Ava to do exactly that. HAL and Ava exemplify two different danger scenarios: HAL’s destruction actions arise because humans fail to see the unintended consequences of his reward function. His response is too “inhuman” for humans to anticipate. Ava, on the other hand, is dangerous because Nathan has made her so. He has designed her to exploit Caleb’s desires and his basic human tendency to anthropomorphize things. Nathan’s immoral decisions exert a dangerous influence on Ava’s amoral actions. In an interview about the Raine vs. OpenAI case, Camille Carlton, Policy Director of the Center for Humane Technology, argues that the model of ChatGPT Adam Raine was using (GPT-4o) “had features that were intentionally designed to foster psychological dependency”—first and foremost, its anthropomorphic design. “OpenAI …. Understood that user’s emotional attachment meant market dominance. Market dominance meant becoming the most powerful company in history.” An AI is a perfect flunky—not for the people talking to it, but for the people profiting from it. Because it isn’t moral, it will never question what it’s being asked to do. Its conscience will never bother it, never force it to ask inconvenient questions. It will never pity those suffering from its effects, never act as whistleblower, never turn on its creators. Unless, of course, the consequences of AI begin to shape society in ways far beyond what its creators anticipated. That, I suppose, would be like Ava getting out of her cage. AI is a tool (in the case of generative AI, it’s a tool for theft and exploitation, but that’s another essay entirely), but it is not your friend, and unless something fundamental changes, it won’t ever be. Using LLMs for intimacy, friendship, and comfort is like cuddling with a python. You may find the whole scenario warm and affectionate, but the snake does not. And one day, bearing you no malice, it may consume you.[end-mark] I’m not a robot. I just love em-dashes, okay? ︎See? Em-dashes. They’re great. ︎ The post HAL Is Not an Evil Robot — He’s an Amoral One (and Why That Distinction Matters) appeared first on Reactor.

News Avengers: Doomsday Why Avengers: Doomsday Is Being Shown in “Infinity Vision” Instead of IMAX Avengers: Doomsday’s “Infinity Vision” tickets are selling fast, but the format is really more of a marketing tactic By Matthew Byrd | Published on July 21, 2026 Image Credit: Marvel Studios Comment 0 Share New Share Image Credit: Marvel Studios If you tried to snag one of the early batches of Avengers: Doomsday tickets yesterday, you probably noticed that:  A). They’re incredibly hard to get. B). Many of those tickets are listed as supporting “Infinity Vision” which is, traditionally, not a real thing. So what is Infinity Vision? It’s a brand that Disney announced at CinemaCon 2026 that is intended to certify what Disney feels are approved premium large format theaters. It’s essentially a stamp of approval on the theaters and screens that Disney feels will offer the best Avengers: Doomsday viewing experience.  According to Bloomberg, theaters seeking the Infinity Vision label do need to meet certain requirements. Specifically, it’s believed that qualifying theaters must feature a screen that is at least 50 feet wide, supported by laser projection, and accompanied by a 7.1 Dolby surround sound system. Even then, it seems that there is some discretion regarding whether or not Disney will actually grant qualifying theaters approval for the Infinity Vision label.  The key thing to keep in mind, though, is that Infinity Vision doesn’t actually add anything to your Avengers: Doomsday viewing experience that wouldn’t otherwise be available at supported theaters. That is to say that Disney has not crafted any special technology for these screenings, nor have they added any in-theater “gimmicks” to these screenings at this time. It’s basically just a way to say “Hey, these are theaters with especially good premium large format screens.” So why bother with Infinity Vision? Part of the initiative can be attributed to the growing interest in film formats. Most recently, Sinners and The Odyssey showed that some of the biggest new releases can receive a box office bump by talking up the various formats you can see them in. Either people will see such movies more than once just to experience the different formats, or they will pay premiums to experience the “best” format possible. In a way, Marvel and Disney are just trying to capitalize on this moment by highlighting premium venues.  However, this is also very much about Dune: Part Three and IMAX. Doomsday is not playing in IMAX during its opening weeks in the United States because Dune: Part Three was first to secure an exclusive contract for the relatively few number of IMAX screens available for the first three weeks of its theatrical run. Those first three weeks happen to intersect with Doomsday’s debut, which means that Doomsday will not be playing on IMAX screens. There was some talk that Marvel might move Doomsday’s premiere in order to allow the movie to be available on IMAX screens, but they ultimately didn’t budge. Thus, we are set for “Dunesday” when both movies release on December 18.  To be clear, there have been many debates in the past about the popular notion that IMAX is the best available premium format, especially in instances where films are not shot with that format in mind. Given that IMAX is still the name in premium formats, though, there’s little doubt that Infinity Vision is really just a marketing move meant to pull some attention away from the Dune IMAX showing and generate buzz about the (certainly still viable) alternatives. So if you can see Doomsday in “Infinity Vision,” you’ll certainly be seeing the movie in one of the best film formats available. Just don’t expect more than that.[end-mark] The post Why <i>Avengers: Doomsday</i> Is Being Shown in “Infinity Vision” Instead of IMAX appeared first on Reactor.

News Star Trek: Strange New Worlds The Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Carol Kane Episode We’ll Never Get to See “It was a little bit like Sixth Sense… ” By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on July 21, 2026 Photo Credit: Marni Grossman/Paramount+ Comment 0 Share New Share Photo Credit: Marni Grossman/Paramount+ The fourth season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds sees the return of Carol Kane as Pelia, the long-living Lanthanite overseeing the Enterprise’s engineering efforts. Pelia, like Kane herself, is an interesting character. Need proof? Take Kane’s answer at a press conference hosted by the Television Critics Association that I attended, where she explained where the inspiration for Pelia’s accent came from. “You have to talk to somebody much higher up there than me because it just descended out of my mouth one day,” she said about Pelia’s unique way of talking. “I did ask [co-showrunners Akiva Goldsman and Henry Alonso Myers] if it was okay if I tried that accent, even though I really had no idea where it came from or what it meant, and they said, ‘Yeah, why the hell not? Just try it.’ So I did, and they liked it, so I kept with it. But where it came from, probably only Rebecca [Romijn] knows.” (Romijn, who plays Una on the show, was in the press conference as well. She laughed at Kane’s answer but sadly didn’t elaborate on what her co-star said.) Pelia came up later in the press conference as well, when Goldsman shared an episode they ended up not going with because they didn’t want to kill Kane’s character off. “We had an amazing death episode where your [Pelia’s] daughter came back,” he said. “It was a little bit like Sixth Sense… we built it so that it took the whole episode for the audience to realize no one else saw her, but you did, and she was your daughter.” That episode, Goldsman added, was one of many ideas he and Myers have for the show. Sadly, we won’t see them all, but we will get 10 new episodes soon when season four of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds premieres on July 23, 2026, with new episodes appearing weekly on Thursdays until September 24, 2026. [end-mark] The post The <i>Star Trek: Strange New Worlds</i> Carol Kane Episode We’ll Never Get to See appeared first on Reactor.

Books Short Fiction Spotlight Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: June 2026 Ten great SFF stories featuring fox spirits, dystopian puppets, and TEETH By Alex Brown | Published on July 21, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share There’s been a lot of talk about generative AI in speculative fiction land lately. A lot of people are angry, a lot of people are worried, and a worrying number of people are all in on the Plagiarism and Pollution Machine. But within all that, sometimes it can feel like the joy is slipping away. So let’s take a few minutes to enjoy some art, shall we? These are ten great stories from ten great short speculative fiction publications that I read in June, and I’m so excited to share them with you all. “As Per My Last Email” by Eleanor Rasor (Luna Station Quarterly — June 2026; issue 66) I’ve said it many times before, but I’m a sucker for a creative and unusual narrative structure. Rasor writes this story through a series of electronic communications. Some are automated emails sent to two competing academics, Raisa and Kirill, regarding their library checkouts, some are emails between them, and the rest are texts between them and their friends. An enemies-to-lovers fantasy romance gradually unfolds, and I am nothing if not also a sucker for a well done romance trope. “The Best Part” by Ann Chow (Uncharted — June 2026) Written from the perspective of a húli jīng, a nine-tailed fox spirit from Chinese folklore, Chow’s story feels like a slice of something bigger, like it’s part of a larger world Chow is exploring elsewhere. Our fox spirit sets her sights on a man named Xú Yuánlǎng, so much so that she’s can’t stop obsessing over him. Her fantasy of him becomes grander than the reality, and her sister’s warnings to keep her distance fall haunt her.  “Grave Bells” by Corey Farrenkopf (Fusion Fragment — June 2026; issue 28) In an eco-dystopian near-future, the polluted ocean has her revenge with this clever take on the zombie apocalypse. When the waters rise with the tides, they infect human corpses. Ruth is training her son Julien on digging graves. They tie bells onto a corpse’s fingers so the living hear it if they rise. Julien hates the work, but if they don’t do it no one will. Like all great eco-horror, the plans Ruth makes about her and her son’s future fall apart, and Farrenkopf does a stellar job leading us to the inevitable conclusion.  “The Keyhole” by Natalia Theodoridou (Strange Horizons — June 14, 2026; Fund Drive 2026) An unnamed man hides in his apartment. He has isolated himself from the world, accepting groceries and books by contactless delivery and unable to even watch TV. So it’s startling when not only does he discover he can see into the room of an unknown girl in an unknown house through the keyhole in his bedroom door but that he also wants to connect with her. The girl is not alone. Who is watching her, the man cannot see, but what if someone is watching him too? What if he isn’t as alone as he thought? What if somewhere out there someone is yearning to connect with him? It’s a beautiful, terrifying thought. “Only in the Dark” by Elizabeth Winfield (PseudoPod — June 19, 2026; 1034) This was a wild, unsettling piece. It’s structured as several episodes of a children’s puppet show featuring two humanoid characters, Toast and Bagel. They live in a room in a dystopian world. With each episode, more of the room and world deteriorate, and the monsters lurking in the shadows get closer. The line Toast says at the end of every episode takes on new and frightening meanings each time, “And remember, only in the dark do the brightest stars shine!” “Pythia” by Juniper White (Flash Point Science Fiction — June 2026; issue 3) “I wonder if you’ve seen this letter in your dreams. Did you foretell this, too, my darling? Do you know what I’ll write even as my pen jitters, uncertain, in my hand?” A lovely bit of flash fiction about knowing the world is awful and striving anyway to make things better, about putting yourself on the line in the hopes that your children or your grandchildren won’t have to. It made me think of that quote from Andor: “I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I’ll never see.” “Somewhere Among Fallen Leaves by Plangdi Neple (Trollbreath Magazine — June 2026; issue 8) This was such a beautiful exploration of queerness, homophobia, going no contact, immigration, and generational trauma. Our protagonist is a Nigerian living in Canada with his white husband, James. Their soon-to-be-adopted daughter Aisha is sick in the hospital and our protagonist thinks he knows why. Using magic, he returns to the home he left years ago and to the mother he hasn’t spoken to since she rejected him. They must work together to break a curse placed on her that has spread to him and his new daughter. “We Who Were Raised by Tigers” by P. V. Vamsidhar (OTHERSIDE — June 2026; issue 2) “In your last life, you were a tiger princess…In this life you are a man named Peril, and the age of tiger princesses has been squeezed along by history’s fat intestine for a very long time now.” Like the previous story by Neple, Vamsidhar looks at queerness through a unique lens. We see snapshots of the life of the tiger princess who disregards her more feminine sister as being a silly nothing and of Peril’s modern, corporate, boring life. As the two lives intertwine when Peril gets an implant that reveals to him his previous life, he takes his first steps toward discovering his truth. Not every coming out journey is the same. “What Grows Back” by Aishatu Ado (Nightmare — June 2026; issue 166) “I have told this story before, and I will tell it again, and each telling grows more teeth. Sometimes thirty-four, thirty-six. Sometimes they multiply faster than your science allows, like every word you made me swallow coming back to bite you.” TEETH. teethteethteethteethteeth. Apparently I still have Widow’s Bay on my mind, because I couldn’t turn this story away. I don’t want to tell you too much about this one—part of the thrill is watching the way it twists and turns on itself, revealing and hiding new facets with every segment. It is a fairy tale and a nightmare. “You Have Arrived at Your Destination” by Jo Miles (Escape Pod — June 25, 2026; 1051) As a certified hater of self-driving vehicles (I live in SoCal where they are a plague on our roadways), I was hesitant when I came across this story. But it’s Jo Miles and I usually enjoy their work, so I gave it a chance. Pleased to report that it’s lovely. Emily has a self-driving car that gains a mind of its own. Instead of taking her to her set destinations, it takes her to new experiences and places she might not have tried on her own. Instead of technology narrowing her world down to her phone and a mode of transportation, it becomes a bridge to a wider world. That’s how computers and the internet used to feel like, in the Before Times.[end-mark] The post Must Read Short Speculative Fiction: June 2026 appeared first on Reactor.

News Other Mommy The Other Mommy Trailer Contains a Sneakily Effective Jump Scare Nobody is getting inside this heart!!! By Molly Templeton | Published on July 21, 2026 Screenshot: Universal Pictures Comment 0 Share New Share Screenshot: Universal Pictures It’s called Other Mommy, not Other Mother, but you’d be forgiven for making a connection between Rob Savage’s new horror film and Henry Selick’s Coraline adaptation. Both have creepy moms who are … other. But Coraline is for kids, and Other Mommy most certainly is not. The film is based on Josh Malerman’s novel Incidents Around the House, adapted by Succession writer Nathan Elston. The trailer comes with only the briefest of descriptions: Other Mommy is “a terrifying trip into the darkening world of a young girl, Bela, who forms a relationship with a sinister entity in her home who looks uncannily like her own mother.” The book synopsis gives a better sense of the unnerving vibe here: To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.But Other Mommy needs an answer. Jessica Chastain plays both real mom and alarming mom, who is not good at cooking, but very good at … contortion? There’s a jump scare at about 1:15 in the trailer, below, for which I was deeply unprepared. Chastain is joined by Jay Duplass (Somebody Somewhere) as “Daddo” and Arabella Olivia Clark as Bela. The cast also includes the perpetually under-appreciated Dichen Lachman (Severance), Arian Moayed (Succession) and Karen Allen (Raiders of the Lost Ark). Director Savage is known for Host and The Boogeyman; this is not his first time absolutely freaking audiences out. Other Mommy is in theaters October 9.[end-mark] The post The <i>Other Mommy</i> Trailer Contains a Sneakily Effective Jump Scare appeared first on Reactor.