Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan - Book Review/Summary

Ian McEwan's Machines Like Me is a novel which weaves the discussion of  a number of important philosophical questions about what it means to be human into an engaging inter-personal narrative.

The genius of the novel is that, unlike most futuristic novels, it is placed in the past. McEwan sets his novel in Thatcher's Britain of 1992 at the time of the Falklands conflict and its immediate aftermath. But there is a twist - this is a parallel history of the C20 and a charismatic and popular Tony Benn (rather than Michael Foot), is leader of the opposition. (Indeed there are feint echoes at times of popular reactions to Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn in 2018).

A particularly fine touch is that McEwan explores the 'What if Alan Turing had not eaten the apple, and, instead, had lived into old age as the pioneer of computer science?' In this history of the C20 a number of technological advances of our recent past (Computers beating human champions at Chess and Go) and near future (autonomous cars, stem cell therapies) are transposed back to the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. 

At the outset, the author places a high-functioning self-conscious humanoid robot, Adam, into a banal domestic setting with Charlie, the narrator, and Miranda his girl-friend. Herein is the vehicle to raise a number of key philosophical questions about the relationship of humans to intelligent machines.

• Can robots/AI have feelings? 
• fall in love? (p.118)
• feel existential pain/angst? (p.181, p.234)
• commit suicide? (p.175)
• Is it murder to kill a self-conscious robot? (p.303)

On the way, McEwan discusses a range of important spin-off issues, such as the possibility the ultimate integration of man and machine in augmented humanity through a brain-machine interface (p.148) and Universal Basic Income funded by a tax on robots (p.169).

This novel is a useful contribution to the debates that we should be having about AI/Robots before they land on our doorstep.