What social and/or political fears come up in this story?

The story is about a fearful all-powerful machine that is called AM. AM, an Allied Master Computer, arises out of a linking of the Russian, Chinese, and the American Allied Master Computers that were created during World War Three. After linking itself, AM turns monstrous and kills everybody on earth, except five people: The narrator (Ted), Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, and Ellen. He also makes these five people immortal and spends his time tormenting them. After...

The story is about a fearful all-powerful machine that is called AM. AM, an Allied Master Computer, arises out of a linking of the Russian, Chinese, and the American Allied Master Computers that were created during World War Three. After linking itself, AM turns monstrous and kills everybody on earth, except five people: The narrator (Ted), Benny, Gorrister, Nimdok, and Ellen. He also makes these five people immortal and spends his time tormenting them. After many years of torment, Ted realizes that AM does not have the power to bring back a dead person to life. He decides to kill all the rest to save them from AM and the cruel kind of life that they have lived. He succeeds but remains on his own. AM ensures that he cannot kill himself by changing his appearance into a “smoothly round jellylike thing," with “rubbery appendages” for arms.

The story portrays the fear of isolation. Towards the end of the story, Ted remains on his own, with the haunting memories of how he has killed the others. His only consolation is that in killing the rest he had, in essence, saved them from the torturous life they had lived. Another social fear is that of suspicion for others. Though the five are the only remaining humans on earth, they have grown suspicious and jealous of one other in spite of their great suffering at the hands of AM. This kind of makes their situation worse, because each is alone in his or her suffering.

Also, the story presents a fear for scientific inventions: sometimes humans can create things which, in the end, destroy them, e.g. AM.