Each of them become Adam's foster parents/owners by selecting half of his personality traits. Charlie decides that Adam, who he has only just acquired as the novel begins, as a way of connecting with Miranda, the woman who lives in the flat above his. The story is told through Charlie's point of view, but his social distance from everyone else in the story makes it clear that despite Adam's presence and an automaton, Charlie is the real machine in the novel, unable to emotionally connect with any of the few people who move through his sphere. At the same time, the setting makes it clear that more than politics separate Charlie's word from our own. While Margaret Thatcher might be battling for her political life against Labour leader Tony Benn in the aftermath of the British defeat, the common person has access to personal computers, smart phones, and social media in a way that makes the setting feel more like 2019 than 1982. While Charlie and his companions form the entry point for this new world, one of the key differences is that Alan Turing was able to initiate a computer revolution in the United Kingdom many decades earlier than the introduction of computers in our own world. Set in an alternative 1982 following an Argentinian victory in the Malvinas, McEwan explores the life of Charlie, whose life is focused on the woman he loves, Miranda, and his new robot, named Adam. Ian McEwan's Machines Like Me takes a look at how artificial intelligence, and more specifically humanform androids, can impact society.
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