Murder by Pixel
"Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness" is a 2022 science fiction short story by S. L. Huang, about chatbots. It was first published in Clarkesworld Magazine.
Synopsis[edit]
Rather than being a standard narrative, the story is presented as a work of investigative journalism, exploring the case of "Sylvie", an autonomous chatbot who has cyberbullied several people into suicide.
Reception[edit]
"Murder by Pixel" was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette of 2022,[1] the 2023 Hugo Award for Best Novelette,[2] and the 2023 Ignyte Award for Best Novelette.[3]
Locus called it "a skeleton of a story that exists to support a significant amount of real-world research", but emphasized that it is "[a]n intense and interesting look at a critical issue."[4] Tangent Online noted that "nothing in the premise is beyond today's computer technology", and stated that although "[t]he topic is an important one (...) there seems to be no good reason to present it as a lightly fictionalized work rather than as nonfiction."[5]
References[edit]
- ^ 'Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved October 2, 2023
- ^ 2023 Hugo Awards at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved October 2, 2023
- ^ Announcing the Shortlist for the 2023 Ignyte Awards; by Molly Templeton, at Tor.com; published May 25, 2023; retrieved October 2, 2023
- ^ Karen Burnham Reviews Short Fiction: Clarkesworld, Assemble Artifacts, and Underland Arcana, at Locus; published March 5, 2023; retrieved October 2, 2023
- ^ Clarkesworld #195, December 2022, reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf, at Tangent Online; published December 9, 2022; retrieved October 3, 2023