Machines Like Me is a literary fiction book by author Ian McEwan.
Machines Like Me happens in 1980s London instead. Britain lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher fought Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieved a breakthrough in the field of artificial intelligence.
In a world not quite like this one, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and hiding from a full-time job, falls in love with Miranda, an intelligent student who lives with a terrible secret. With the money, Charlie buys Adam, one of the first artificial people. With Miranda’s help, he co-designed Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human being is beautiful, strong, and intelligent – a love triangle soon takes shape. These three creatures will face a profound moral dilemma.
Ian McEwan’s novel raises fundamental questions: What makes us who we are? Our outer actions or our inner lives? A machine that can understand the human heart? This thrilling and provocative story warns against the possibility of inventing things beyond our control.
The book is a mixture of science fiction and romance, depicting the development of a love triangle in which one person is a robot.
Unfortunately, the writer is not good at both styles. Anyone who knows a little about science fiction will immediately find it unfamiliar, the dramatic mechanism is terrible. His resources in the romance genre are also limited, with the usual mix of jealousy, anxiety, and discrimination.
