Machines Like Me

His character was in, done, from two sources irreversibly merged. A curious parent of a growing child might wonder which characteristics belonged to the father, which to the mother. I was observing Adam closely. I knew which questions Miranda had answered but I didn’t know what she had decided. I noted that a certain blankness had gone from his face, that he seemed more intact, smoother in his interactions with us and certainly more expressive. But I struggled to understand what it told me about Miranda or, for that matter, about myself. In humans, recombination is infinitely subtle and then, crudely but disarmingly lopsided. The parents merge, like fluids stirred together, but the mother’s face might be faithfully replicated in her child just as the father fails to pass on his gift for comedy. I remembered little Mark’s touching version of his father’s features. But in Adam’s personality, Miranda and I were well shuffled and, as in humans, his inheritance was thickly overlaid by his capacity to learn. Perhaps he had my tendency to pointless theorising. Perhaps he had something of Miranda’s secretive nature and her self-possession, her taste for solitude. Frequently he withdrew into himself, humming or murmuring ‘Ah!’ Then he would pronounce what he took to be an important truth. His interrupted remark about the afterlife was the earliest example.

Another was when we were outside, in my tiny fraction of a back garden, marked off by a broken picket fence. He was helping to pull up weeds. It was just before sunset, the air was still and warm, suffused by an unreal amber light. A week had passed since our late-night exchange. I had brought him outside because his dexterity was still a matter of interest to me. I wanted to watch him handle a hoe and a rake. More generally, my plan was to introduce him to the world beyond the kitchen table. We had friendly neighbours on both sides and there was a chance that he could test his small-talk skills. If we were to travel together to Salisbury to meet Maxfield Blacke, I wanted to prepare Adam by taking him to some shops, and perhaps a pub. I was sure he could pass off as a person, but he needed to be more at ease, his machine-learning capacities needed stretching.

I was keen to see how good he was at identifying plants. Of course, he knew everything. Feverfew, wild carrot, camomile. As he worked, he muttered the names, for his own rather than my benefit. I saw him put on gardening gloves to pull up nettles. Mere mimicry. Later, he straightened and looked with apparent interest towards a spectacular western sky intersected by power and telephone lines and a receding jumble of Victorian roofs. His hands were on his hips and he leaned back, as though his lower back was giving him trouble. He took a deep breath to indicate his appreciation of the evening air. Then, out of nowhere, he said, ‘From a certain point of view, the only solution to suffering would be the complete extinction of humankind.’

Yes, this was why he needed to be out and about. Buried within his circuitry there was probably a set of sub-routines: sociability/conversation/interesting openers.

But I decided to join in. ‘It’s been said that killing everyone would be a cure for cancer. Utilitarianism can be logically absurd.’

He replied, ‘Obviously!’ in an abrupt manner. I looked at him, surprised, and he turned away from me and bent again to his work.

Adam’s insights, even when valid, were socially inept. On our first expedition away from home, we walked the 200 yards to our local newsagent, Mr Syed. We passed a few people in the street and no one gave Adam a second glance. That was satisfying. Over bare skin he was wearing a tight yellow jumper, knitted by my mother in her last year. He had white jeans and canvas loafers, bought for him by Miranda. She had promised to buy him a complete outfit of his own. With his neat muscular bulge of chest and arms, he could have passed for a personal trainer from the local gym.

Where the pavement narrowed between a tree and a garden wall, I saw how he stood aside to let a woman with a pushchair through.

As we neared the shop he said, somewhat absurdly, ‘It’s good to get out.’