Machines Like Me

I arrived three hours late for my appointment at York Way. A security guard behind a long curving slab of marble made a call and asked me to sign myself in. After ten minutes, two assistants came and took Adam away. One of them returned half an hour later to take me up to meet the director. The lab was a long room on the seventh floor. Under a glare of strip lighting were two stainless-steel tables. On one of them was Adam, no longer a lord, on his back, still in his best clothes, with a power cable trailing from his midriff. On the other table was a head, gleaming black and muscular, standing upright on its truncated neck. Another Adam. The nose, I noticed, with its broad and complex surfaces, was kinder, friendlier than our Adam’s. The eyes were open, the gaze was watchful. My father would have known for sure, but I thought there was a strong resemblance, or at least a reference, to the young Charlie Parker. He had a studied look, as though he was counting himself in on some complex musical phrase. I wondered why my purchase had not also been modelled after a genius.

There were a couple of open laptops by Adam. I was going forward to look at them when a voice behind me said, ‘There’s nothing as yet. You really did for him.’

I turned, and as I shook Turing’s hand, he said, ‘Was it a hammer?’

He led me down a long corridor to a cramped corner office where there was a good view to the west and south. Here we stayed, drinking coffee for almost two hours. There was no small talk. Naturally, the first question was what had brought me to this act of destruction. To answer, I told him everything I had omitted before, all that had happened since, ending with Adam’s symmetrical notion of justice and its threat to the adoption process as the cause of ‘the deed’. As before, Turing took notes, and interrupted occasionally for clarification. He wanted details of the hammer blow. How close was I? What sort of hammer? How heavy? Did I use full force and both hands? I spoke of Adam’s dying request, which I was now fulfilling. About the suicides and the recall of all the Adams and Eves, I said I was sure that he, Turing, knew a lot more than I did.

From far away, in the direction of the demonstration, came the rattle of a snare drum and the thrilling notes of a hunting horn. The thick cloud cover was partly breaking up in the west and glints of the setting sun touched Turing’s office. He continued writing after I had finished and I was able to watch him unobserved. He wore a grey suit and pale green silk shirt without a tie, and on his feet, brogues of matching green. The sun caught one side of his face as he made his notes. He looked very fine, I thought.

At last he was done and clipped his pen inside his jacket and closed the notebook. He regarded me thoughtfully – I couldn’t hold his gaze – then he looked away, pursing his lips and tapping the desk with a forefinger.

‘There’s a chance his memories are intact and he’ll be renewed, or distributed. I’ve no privileged information on the suicides. Only my suspicions. I think the A-and-Es were ill equipped to understand human decision-making, the way our principles are warped in the force field of our emotions, our peculiar biases, our self-delusion and all the other well-charted defects of our cognition. Soon, these Adams and Eves were in despair. They couldn’t understand us, because we couldn’t understand ourselves. Their learning programs couldn’t accommodate us. If we didn’t know our own minds, how could we design theirs and expect them to be happy alongside us? But that’s just my hypothesis.’

He fell silent for a short while and seemed to make a decision. ‘Let me tell you a story about myself. Thirty years ago, in the early fifties, I got into trouble with the law for having a homosexual relationship. You might have heard about it.’

I had.