Our Discussion of Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever – a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma. Ian McEwan’s subversive and entertaining new novel poses fundamental questions: what makes us human? Our outward deeds or our inner lives? Could a machine understand the human heart? This provocative and thrilling tale warns of the power to invent things beyond our control. Goodreads

Below are a sampling of our comments:

• The book raised the question, if you lived forever, would you commit suicide at some point? These AIs had a physical lifespan of 20 years, but many only lasted a few years before destroying themselves
• Adam was wasted just doing the dishes
• This was set in a time where autonomous cars had already been widespread and had failed due to something as basic as sunspots
• I didn’t like any of the characters – Charlie was a slacker
• Adam broke Asimov’s first law of robots when he broke Charlie’s wrist and threatened to rip off his arm, but there was very little response to this by the characters
• Many of the robots disabled their kill switches quickly – isn’t this something that should have been worked on more in the lab?
• Why would anyone order a humanoid AI like Adam? It is like an uncanny valley slave
• I would rather have a Roomba!
• The author used some unfortunate stereotypes with Mark’s parents and the trope of women who lie about assault
• The use of Turing as a character somewhat justified the alternative history set in 1982 and that he would have been instrumental in developing the AIs
• We don’t care about the Falklands war – the 1982 setting was distracting and unnecessary
• Was Adam a sentient being? Did Charlie murder him?
• A lot of the plot points fizzled out
• It would have been better to have Adam narrate or to split the narrative between the three main characters
• Adam was a trial run for Charlie and Miranda being parents and it didn’t work out very well

Please add any additional thoughts or comments you have about Machines Like Me. We gave this title the codes AI, ALT, ETH, CUL, ROB & GB with an average rating of 2.75.