Onyx reviews: Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan

Reviewed by Bev Vincent, 03/06/2019

It's 1982, but not 1982 as we know it. America didn't drop any atomic bombs on Japan, the Beatles reunited (although critics agree their songs aren't as good as they used to be), Britain is on the verge of losing the Falkland Islands war and, most importantly, Alan Turing didn't die in 1954. He refused to submit to the chemical castration proposed as a cure for his homosexuality and he went on to create the Internet and artificial intelligence.

The first AI robots have just been unleashed on the world, a limited edition of 13 females (dubbed Eves) and 12 males (Adam, of course). After proper configuration, these robots are mostly indistinguishable from real people, although they tend to philosophical ramblings and prolonged periods of introspection.

The protagonist of Machines Like Me, Charlie Friend, blows his inheritance to purchase an Adam (the Eves sold out quickly, making him one of the few people in England to own one. He keeps his purchase secret from everyone except his upstairs neighbor, Miranda, ten years his junior and the object of his desires. He believes that if he invites her to share in the process of configuring Adam's personality, they will bond and a permanent relationship will form. He randomly assigns her half of the lengthy list of attributes that can be chosen, and gives her free reign while he labors over his own configuration tasks.

Charlie's efforts pay off, after a fashion. He and Miranda do become intimate, although he comes to understand that she's treating their relationship as a convenience. He is alarmed when Adam, who has instant access to a vast array of information once he awakens, warns Charlie that Miranda is a dangerous liar and he should be wary of her. Then Miranda proves her unreliability by testing out all of Adam's capabilities, an encounter Charlie is forced to listen to from his flat beneath hers.

Charlie is a diffident character, wandering aimlessly through life. He's had one encounter with the law that set him back, and any time he comes up with a scheme that earns some money, he immediately follows it with another that loses most of it. He's currently "working" as a day trader, attempting to predict trends that will benefit companies. He earns enough to get by, but his bets on England's outcome in the Falklands battle is another setback. Thatcher's political career is cut short and the country is an uproar, on the verge of Brexit forty years early.

Numerous complications ensue. Charlie stumbles upon a father acting abusively towards his young son and, uncharacteristically intercedes. Adam falls in love with Miranda and, after analyzing the literature, decides the haiku is the perfect form to express his passion, churning out hundreds of the short verses. Miranda's past—the particular lie to which Adam referred—is revealed and through its revelation Miranda and Charlie experience a breakthrough in their relationship, even as Adam's rigid morality threatens to destroy them. Charlie gets to meet his idol, Turing, although their encounters go in a different direction from what he might have hoped.

The book asks at what point does something cease to be a creation, a series of bits and bytes carrying out pre-ordained functions? When does something become sentient? Can an artificial intelligence be taught the subtleties of human behavior: how to lie to spare another's feelings, for example. Or when revenge might be justified. These are all questions that have been covered before in science fiction (by Isaac Asimov and on Battlestar Galactica to name just two instances), but McEwan puts a human face on the story by setting it in a familiar context.