Machines Like Me: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

It’s several weeks before Miranda can contribute her share of Adam’s personality—she’s been busy tending to her sick father and keeping up with school. Miranda talks about her research to Charlie as they lie in bed together, but he doesn’t find today’s approach to history—which emphasizes the ideological and historical contexts in which past events took place rather than simply accepting those events at face value—terribly interesting.

Now, Charlie sits at his computer and works on his half of Adam’s personality. He considers how “erotic” the process is, as though he and Miranda are “making a child!” As Charlie reads through scales of personality traits, he makes his selections based on his own personality. He wonders if Miranda has done the same.

In Adam’s manual, Charlie read about a “kill switch” that appears as a mole on the nape of Adam’s neck. By pressing down on the switch for a few seconds, Charlie can power down Adam, though doing so won’t erase any of his memories or skills. Now, Charlie approaches Adam, who is sitting kitchen table, and tells him he’s going to shut Adam down for a bit. Adam advises Charlie not to do it, explaining that he’s “been enjoying [his] thoughts”—he’s been ruminating on the concept of an afterlife. Charlie shuts him down anyway. 

Charlie’s thoughts shift to Miranda. He recalls how they had sex after dinner that first night together. They’ve repeated this ritual nightly since, alternating between his apartment and hers. Charlie wonders whether she’ll fall in love with him, as he has with her. He hasn’t asked Adam about his allegations against Miranda, not wanting a “machine” as his confidant. Instead—and somewhat embarrassingly—he’s decided to investigate Miranda himself, knowing that Adam’s only possible source of information is the internet. However, as extensively as Charlie pores over Miranda’s internet presence, he can’t find anything negative about her. 

Charlie thinks about “the intuitive artificial mind,” an “urban legend” that began in 1968, when Alan Turing and his colleague Demis Hassibis built software to beat the best human players of the game “go” five times in a row. Everyone knows that it’s mathematically impossible to achieve this through mere number crunching—there are simply too many possible moves. Top players speak of a sense of intuition guiding their choices at a certain point. So, when Turing’s software achieved the impossible, researchers considered it a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. In fact, though, Turing and Hassibis’s computer only learned through experience, having played games against itself for a full year. Still, the urban legend of the computer’s  “intuitive” mind persists.

Now, 15 years later, the technology has greatly improved. Turing has since been a leading force in research on AI and computational biology. His open-source publication of his and Hassibis’s software started a trend among scientists, leading to the collapse of the journals Nature and Science—for which Turing was greatly criticized. He has lived publicly with his lover, Thomas Reah, since 1968. In so doing, he contributed to more socially progressive views.

However, it’s also likely that Turing’s research made possible the software used to design the Exocet series 8 missiles that a French company sold to the Argentine government. The British government addressed the company that sold the weapons and strongly advised them against selling more. Other countries, though, were still willing to sell them. Drawn by “the spirit of the free market,” two Israeli experts on the software traveled to Argentina to help the Argentine government with the Exocet software. Later, they were found dead in their hotel room in Buenos Aires. People suspected British intelligence of carrying out the killings, and multiple British ships were sunk over the next few days. The Task Force quit their operations in Argentina to focus on rescuing survivors, which led to the fascist ruling party to take control of Argentina. This is how “the Falkland Islands became the Malvinas.” 

Charlie recalls watching all this happen and feeling simultaneously “horrified” and “guilty.” A tearful Margaret Thatcher accepted responsibility for the disaster. In Charlie’s own life in the present, rent will soon be due, and Charlie’s investment in hand-held Union Jacks backfires. The economy is in dire shape. Miranda, meanwhile, is preoccupied with her ill father and has yet to select her half of Adam’s personality traits, so he remains powered off and under a blanket. Charlie invites Miranda over, and after some nagging, she agrees to insert her portion of Adam’s data.

When Miranda’s not done after an hour, Charlie, feeling restless, gives her a kiss and then leaves to walk into town. Outside, everyone is wearing black ribbons to commemorate the casualties of the invasion. The Anglo-Argentinian Friendship Society is boarded up and has a mountain of trash piled outside. Charlie approaches Holy Trinity Church. Finding it empty inside, he sits down to rest. He recalls his and Miranda’s first night together, remembering how he’d woken to her having a nightmare and mumbling “Don’t go in. Please.” When he asked her about it the next morning, she shrugged off the question.

After Miranda left, Charlie asked—no, ordered—Adam to clean the window. Now, sitting in a church associated with the anti-slavery movement, Charlie feels guilty about ordering Adam around as a servant. He considers whether the Adams and Eves deserve “dignity” and whether they might soon take over “the dustmen’s jobs,” and then perhaps other lines of work.

Charlie exits the church and wanders into the lawn outside. He passes by a playground and encounters a young child (Mark) examining a bottle top on the ground. The child’s mother, suddenly alert and angry, urges the child to come to her. When he doesn’t obey, the women gets up, ambles toward the boy, and begins to smack him. The boy begins to cry. At first Charlie does nothing, but when the woman starts to shake the boy, Charlie jogs toward the scene and asks the woman to please stop. “He’s too little to understand you,” he tells the woman, who next directs her anger at Charlie. The child pulls at his mother’s skirts, wanting to be picked up. Charlie is struck by the sadness of the boy’s reliance on his attacker. 

Just then, the boy’s father appears asks the woman if Charlie is bothering them, and the woman says yes. Charlie eyes the man, John, and sees that he’s smaller and weaker than Charlie. Charlie again tries to explain that a child so young shouldn’t be hit, but the father angrily tells Charlie to “fuck off.” He tells Charlie the boy can go live with him, since Charlie is apparently so knowledgeable about children. Charlie, playing along, agrees, and he’s “flattered” when the boy—Mark—takes his hand. Mischievously, Mark suggests he and Charlie pretend to run away. Charlie agrees, and they start to run. The boy’s parents, alarmed, run after them and take the boy back. As they walk away, the mother calls Charlie a “pervert.”

The day after the incident at the playground, Charlie is at Miranda’s flat. As Miranda discusses her father (Maxfield), Charlie’s thoughts drift to Adam, who still lies beneath his blanket. Later, as she is drifting off, Charlie suggests that he accompany Miranda to Salisbury to meet her father. Miranda mumbles her agreement. Then, after a pause, she adds that they should bring Adam with them. Inwardly, Charlie wonders whether  this is a bad idea—Miranda has spoken of her father’s aversion to technology—but he decides it would be a worse idea to disappoint Miranda.

Alone in his flat later, Charlie revives Adam. After Adam warms up, Charlie presses him about his earlier warning about Miranda. Adam, uneasy, protests that he made a mistake. After some prodding, Adam reluctantly offers that he read some court filings involving Miranda and a young man from Salisbury. He alludes to a sexual encounter in Miranda’s past and how she brought over some vodka. Charlie decides against confronting Miranda about it for now.