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.

Synopsis

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

Murder by Pixel was a finalist for the Nebula Award for Best Novelette of 2022,[1] and is a finalist for 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
  1. 'Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness at Science Fiction Writers of America; retrieved October 2, 2023
  2. 2023 Hugo Awards at TheHugoAwards.org; retrieved October 2, 2023
  3. Announcing the Shortlist for the 2023 Ignyte Awards; by Molly Templeton, at Tor.com; published May 25, 2023; retrieved October 2, 2023
  4. Karen Burnham Reviews Short Fiction: Clarkesworld, Assemble Artifacts, and Underland Arcana, at Locus; published March 5, 2023; retrieved October 2, 2023
  5. Clarkesworld #195, December 2022, reviewed by Victoria Silverwolf, at Tangent Online; published December 9, 2022; retrieved October 3, 2023
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