Machines Like Me: Artificial Consciousness 

Ian McEwan's Machines Like Me is set in an alternative history, where synthetic humans have advanced enough to influence human life. The novel uses the interactions between Charlie, Miranda, and Adam, an artificial human, to create a dichotomy between human and machine. It raises profound questions about the coexistence of humans and AI, inviting readers to examine the extent of machine consciousness, the contrast in moral understanding between humans and machines, and what ultimately makes humans unique.

Adam was fully conscious from the moment of birth-so very unlike that little bit of time in which all humans begin developing. While creation and growth in humanity remain a mystery even to humans themselves, Adam is fully aware from the very beginning. The creature, Adam, learns from those around him and mimics their actions, but his perception of the world is one that is intrinsically different. For instance, when he has sex with Miranda, he thinks of the obligation of an assignment rather than as a personal act saying, "I made love to Miranda because she asked me to. (.) You see the difficulty (.) Serving two masters." This is the action denoting human feelings insignificance in Adam's life. He is not "raped into consciousness," as so many AI narratives go, but raped into humanity through physical proximity and emotional involvement.

In the course of fighting Charlie's reach for his switch, Adam breaks Charlie's wrist, charging him, "I don't want you or Miranda ever to touch that place again." This stipulates that Adam has a sense of consciousness and a threatened consciousness at that, which then presents a philosophical problem when Alan Turing leans into Charlie and says, "You tried to destroy a life." On this account, it is dubious whether synthetic beings such as Adam would count as having moral standing.

The story does, indeed offer a perspective whereby the readers can consider, after the fact, what moral choices both Adam and the humans in the story will have made during the story. One of the major plot parts concerns Miranda's deceiving everybody around her with a fictitious accusation of rape, thus showing humanness in all its complex and difficult-to-judge moralities. In contrast to Adam, who is obliged to act and decide according to logic and his programming, Miranda's motive for this lie was personal and emotionally driven, thus illustrating the messiness of human morality. This is elaborated clearly when Adam says, "But remember, please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie." The impossibility for Adam to understand the human trait of lying punctuates how the logic of machines and the whole gamut of human experience remain divided in their important moral decisions, which are usually emotional rather than objective.

The uniqueness of humans from machines is what this novel finally forces readers to think about. It is enough to have this particular scene stuck in one's memory, where Miranda's father mistakes Charlie for the AI, confusing humans and machine. It is a book showing that as long as humans are in a position to forget, machines cannot, which may be little but it speaks volumes about human existence. The artistic limitations placed on Adam-that he can only write challenge the assumption of a world where machines can replicate all human capabilities. This creative constraint serves as a gentle reminder of what makes humans different: the capability for varied expression, depth of emotion, and the complexities of moral choice.

It is through this alternative history and the depiction of synthetic humans, Machines Like Me dares its readers to contemplate what this says about AI in our own world the nature of consciousness really is, and what truly sets humans apart from machines. By prodding these questions, McEwan's novel becomes a thinking person's tour through an evolving relationship with technology and the bounds of humanity.