Yamamoto: Story 5

Chris Carr
Yamamoto: Story 5

I found Story 5 to be one of my favorites so far. I feel this story does a very good job at bringing out a huge amount of fear and anxiety in me, which helps me lock into a story. I have always found AI in general to be a cause for anxiety in storytelling, and deadly viruses are very good at doing the same. What I find very interesting is that this is the first story in Stories of Ibis which does not have a happy ending. I have said this before, but we as humans seem to be much more interested in stories that show stressful situations, rather than simpler, happier stories, like Story 3. I found lots of similarities with this story and Westworld, mainly due to the fact that this human being is finding herself stuck in a world where death is real, while the other half is in a world where restarts can always be given. I would also consider Westworld one of the most popular shows of today, and I believe it is due to the stressful, negative situations. People do not want to see others finding easy happy endings, people want to be entertained with things that they would never be able to do themselves. The many AI's in this cybernetic world choose these exciting situations each year, but would they be choosing these same yearly storylines if they knew there was no reset button? People like the feeling of taking big risks, but they do not like to actually take these risks. This is why I, along with many others, will find stressful stories which bring out anxiety much more fun to read or watch. It gives you the feeling of taking risks, without having to actually take big risks. For instance, Story 3 seems like an interesting idea in concept, but there was not much risk being taken in getting what is basically just an AI with no evil intent. To catch human beings attention, you need to give them the feeling of risk taking, so they can put themselves in the protagonists shoes and stay interested.