# Machines Like Me

Machines Like Me is the 15th novel by the English author Ian McEwan. The novel was published in 2019 by Jonathan Cape.
The novel is set in the 1980s in an alternative history timeline in which the UK lost the Falklands War, Alan Turing is still alive, and the Internet, social media, and self-driving cars already exist. The story revolves around an android named Adam and its/his relationship with its/his owners, Charlie and Miranda, which involves the formation of a love triangle.

## Plot summary

Machines Like Me is set in an alternate 1980s London, where the creation of humanoid robots known as synthetic humans becomes a reality. The novel centers on Charlie Friend, a 33-year-old man who, after inheriting money, purchases one of these robots, named Adam. Charlie lives in a modest apartment, and his neighbor, Miranda Blacke, is a doctoral student with whom he begins a romantic relationship.
As the narrative unfolds, Charlie and Miranda co-create Adam’s personality, and tensions arise as Adam, equipped with advanced artificial intelligence, starts to exhibit human-like emotions and behaviors. The novel explores how Charlie and Miranda grapple with their growing feelings for Adam and the complex ethical questions surrounding artificial intelligence. The story raises critical issues about the nature of consciousness, free will, and the implications of creating beings capable of human-like desires. Ultimately, Machines Like Me examines the moral consequences of technological advancements and the boundary between humans and machines.

## Reception

According to Book Marks, the book received "positive" reviews based on twenty-eight critic reviews with five being "rave" and ten being "positive" and ten being "mixed" and three being "pan". In Books in the Media, a site that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a (3.78 out of 5) from the site which was based on fifteen critic reviews. In a 2019 issue of Bookmarks (a magazine that aggregates critic reviews of books), it received a (3.5 out of 5).
Writing for The New York Times, Jeff Giles notes, "It is not the first, or even the 10th, place to start reading McEwan if you've never encountered him before. Yet he's such a masterly writer of prose and provocative thinker of thoughts that even his lesser novels leave marks. 'Machines' is a sharp, unsettling read, which—despite its arteries being clogged with research and back story—has a lot on its mind about love, family, jealousy and deceit. Ultimately, it asks a surprisingly mournful question: If we built a machine that could look into our hearts, could we really expect it to like what it sees?" Similarly positive, Ron Charles, for The Washington Post, concludes that McEwan "is not only one of the most elegant writers alive, he is one of the most astute at crafting moral dilemmas within the drama of everyday life. True, contending with an attractive synthetic rival is a problem most of us won't have to deal with anytime soon (sorry, Alexa), but figuring out how to treat each other, how to do some good in the world, how to create a sense of value in our lives, these are problems no robot will ever solve for us." Heller McAlpin, for NPR, concludes by praising how the book "also manages to flesh out—literally and grippingly—questions about what constitutes a person, and the troubling future of humans if the smart machines we create can overtake us."