‘Mystery of the self’: embodied personhood and artificial intelligence in Ian McEwan’s Machines Like Me
Saswati Swayamprava, Nagendra Kumar
Textual Practice April 22, 2025 DOI: 10.1080/0950236x.2025.2496136 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Argues that the artificial intelligence Adam in Ian McEwan's Machines Like Me has phenomenologically rich experiences comparable in complexity to human ones, that Charles Taylor's concept of personhood does not adequately apply to such an AI, and that the novel invites reconsideration of the boundaries of personhood, ethical obligations toward future humanoid robots, and the traditional notion of the self. |
Abstract
ABSTRACT This article undertakes an examination of the subjective experiences of the artificial intelligence portrayed in Ian McEwan’s novel Machines Like Me. Addressing the ontological status of Adam, an artificial intelligence, the investigation employs David Herman’s strategies of recategorising characters as persons and nonpersons to highlight the phenomenological richness of the experiences of artificial intelligence and raises fundamental queries concerning the definition of personhood. Through this, the article critiques Charles Taylor’s concept of personhood and evaluates its applicability to an artificial intelligence like Adam. Drawing on phenomenological theories of embodiment relating to aspects of consciousness such as perception, intersubjectivity, and social cognition as proposed by Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Jean-Paul Sartre, the analysis demonstrates that the experiences of artificial intelligence are as complex as those of humans. Through these readings, the article concludes that in designing artificial intelligence who are ontologically similar to humans, the novel opens up a space for delving into the ethical obligations that humans have towards future humanoid robots through a reconsideration of the boundaries of personhood. Moreover, it challenges the traditional notion of the self by suggesting that it can be artificially constructed and still be meaningful.