The Machine: Sees All and Doesn't Tell All

[immortalfrieza]

I decided that the writers have shown enough about The Machine and it's taking action of it's own accord to call it a character in it's own right at this point, so I put this thread up to give fans a specific place to discuss what we know about it so far and speculate on it and it's motivations.

As for myself, I like The Machine's premise, a belevolent all seeing A.I. that goes out of it's way to help people as much as it can. It's an interesting way of doing things, much better than the insane "KILL ALL HUMANS!!!" that other A.I. in fiction tends to end up as, and I wonder how Samaritan will compare to it.

However, the one consistent problem I've been having with it is I have yet to understand why it doesn't communicate with anyone aside from Root, even if only on occasion in situations that really could use it or that The Machine has a personal stake in, like this whole Samaritan thing. As the episodes go by it's becoming harder and harder to justify this.

Edited April 16, 2014 by immortalfrieza

[tessaray]

In my mind, the machine just communicates with Root because she is the only one who treats it like a real person.  They may end up explaining it as something else but I felt as if Root reaching out to it woke up the sentient aspect of itself.  Although, it displayed self-preservation before and an attachment to Harold, so what do I know?  A little too metaphysical for me.  :-)

[FormerMod-a1]

The Machine talks to Root because she intercepted the call meant for Harold after the reboot.  Root had figured out that after the Machine reboots it would reach out to and that the Machine would "imprint" on the recipient of that call.  If it weren't for her interference, the Machine wouldn't be calling her.  That's why there was the big battle at the end there, Finch/Reese figuring out where the call would be, and then racing against the clock to get the Machine's call rather than Root.  When they realized they couldn't pull that off, Finch had to frantically split the call so that Reese could get a secondary call (that secondary call was not part of the original design).

 

And then, as Root said, since she got that primary call she was able to create the relationship she wanted with the Machine.

[tessaray]

Which episode is that?  I vaguely recall that scene but must have missed something in the setup.

[FormerMod-a1]

I believe it's the last couple of episodes of season 2.

[ABay]

Root said the Machine only gives numbers to Harold, rather than talking to him the way it does Root, because that's the relationship Harold wanted and the Machine respects his wishes.

[FormerMod-a1]

Right.  And she got the relationship she wanted with it by intercepting that call.  She figured out the Machine's existence, she "researched", stalked and/or murdered anyone that get her more info on it, stalked it and then intercepted a call not meant for her.  

[stealinghome]

I don't disagree, but I think that, at this point, the Machine could talk more directly to people other than Root. It's just that no one else wants to talk to it that directly, so it's stuck.

 

Shaw seems to have less than no interest in directly talking to the Machine--she seems to be the most apathetic toward it of all the team. Like, obviously she understands that it's an AI, but she still seems to see it largely as a (very smart and reliable) tool, not so much its own entity. (And she certainly hates feeling spied upon!) After Carter's death, John has gotten uber growly pretty much every time the idea of the Machine as something more than just a machine that spits out numbers comes up--and I'm not saying that he's wrong to feel that way, but he pretty clearly still is holding a grudge. And as Root said, Harold pretty much lives in denial about what the Machine is, and part of his denial is limiting his contact with it to the spitting out of numbers.

 

So tl;dr, I suspect that the Machine would reach out more directly to at least Finch (and very possibly John) if they were receptive, but they're not particularly receptive and it's honoring their wishes. And, well, it wants to get shit done, so. (And actually, I'm really curious, with the team split up in S4, to see if the Machine actually does try to reach out to them individually more.)

Edited September 12, 2014 by stealinghome

[immortalfrieza]

Well, the problem I have is more and more situations are mounting where it would be extremely useful if not vital for The Machine to directly talk to someone else besides just Root. Even in matters of life and death The Machine is refusing to talk to anyone besides Root with anything other than numbers, with it's abilities it could even send money and emails and such to various people to get things and get people to do things besides the team. In fact, if The Machine did communicate with the team they would have easily prevented Samaritan's existence or at least significantly stalled it to the point that I'm wondering if The Machine wanted Samaritan to come online.

[ABay]

Now that "Northern Lights" has been revealed by Vigilance/Decima, the Machine could try to recruit more actively. Until it was publicly known to exist, it was a secret people were killed for knowing. That's also part of why Harold only gets numbers; any more information would've alerted Control and co. to the backdoor. Exactly how the Machine would go about convincing useful people to do its bidding, other than saving them via Harold and friends to create goodwill like the Rooters, I'm not sure. But it's a super computer genius so it could probably think of something.

 

When I start thinking about the Machine and Samaritan, I can't help thinking about Hitchhiker's Guide and Deep Thought. Which would make Samaritan the Earth?

Edited September 12, 2014 by ABay

[tessaray]

 

Right.  And she got the relationship she wanted with it by intercepting that call.  She figured out the Machine's existence, she "researched", stalked and/or murdered anyone that get her more info on it, stalked it and then intercepted a call not meant for her.

 

Which is ironic because post-Machine, she starts having to behave more humanely because of it.  She's still crazy but is starting to develop a sense of right and wrong as most of us know it.

[ABay]

The Machine is the Redeemer.

 

If this show goes on long enough, and he survives long enough, even Greer will have a redemption arc.

[immortalfrieza]

Well, what I meant was The Machine could very easily contact people to get them to do things and/or get things completely anonymously and in fact had already done so, even before it was "freed" by Harold. Say for instance Team Machine needs to go into a heavily guarded building to save a POI, and they infiltrate the building only to find everybody inside unconscious already. Turns out that The Machine had hacked some money, paid someone to make a gas bomb with Emails and such, and paid a mercenary to plant said bomb in the air vents or something (I wouldn't know how this would work) and set in on a timer so that it knocks everybody in the building out in seconds and the gas clears out just before Team Machine had shown up. You know, something like that.

 

Also, I'd understand The Machine's refusal to bother talking to anyone directly during the typical "POI of the week" episodes and some other situations when Team Machine is perfectly capable of handling things themselves, but when The Machine has a personal stake in what's going on I can't see any reason why it would still refuse to talk to anyone besides Root. Even the whole "because it respects Harold's wishes" and those sorts of excuses become more and more ridiculous as the episodes go by and more situations come up when Team Machine is put into incredible danger, gets badly injured, and even outright fails when it could easily be avoided just by having The Machine at least TRY to talk to them, or do something like I mentioned in the last paragraph. Carter's death is just the point where it's continued refusal to do this hit the point where I just couldn't justify it in my head anymore.

 

Obviously this would kill the plot if the writers were to do either of these things all the time, but I'd at least expect it on occasion. All it would take is to have all this make sense again is to have The Machine try to talk to the team and have them reject it, then it'll be easy to justify it's refusal from that point on for the most part.

Edited September 14, 2014 by immortalfrieza

[IndependentMind]

The whole theme of Season 4 is how the team will function without the Machine there all the time. What will they do? How will they cope? It is also about trust. And Finch accepting responsibility for his creation and its consequences. Because of Ssmaritan online now, he can no longer ignore the catastrophe looming if they don't do anything about it. Root has been telling him about it for most of season 3 but he refused to believe her.

[Syme]

FWIW:

 

I snatched a screengrab of the suspects, as seen on the ComicCom teaser...

 

Don't recall who the other three are.....

 

[ABay]

They're the guys who helped Root fix the Samaritan servers. Two of them were POIs in earlier episodes.

[johntfs]

Well, what I meant was The Machine could very easily contact people to get them to do things and/or get things completely anonymously and in fact had already done so, even before it was "freed" by Harold. Say for instance Team Machine needs to go into a heavily guarded building to save a POI, and they infiltrate the building only to find everybody inside unconscious already. Turns out that The Machine had hacked some money, paid someone to make a gas bomb with Emails and such, and paid a mercenary to plant said bomb in the air vents or something (I wouldn't know how this would work) and set in on a timer so that it knocks everybody in the building out in seconds and the gas clears out just before Team Machine had shown up. You know, something like that.

 

Also, I'd understand The Machine's refusal to bother talking to anyone directly during the typical "POI of the week" episodes and some other situations when Team Machine is perfectly capable of handling things themselves, but when The Machine has a personal stake in what's going on I can't see any reason why it would still refuse to talk to anyone besides Root. Even the whole "because it respects Harold's wishes" and those sorts of excuses become more and more ridiculous as the episodes go by and more situations come up when Team Machine is put into incredible danger, gets badly injured, and even outright fails when it could easily be avoided just by having The Machine at least TRY to talk to them, or do something like I mentioned in the last paragraph. Carter's death is just the point where it's continued refusal to do this hit the point where I just couldn't justify it in my head anymore.

 

Obviously this would kill the plot if the writers were to do either of these things all the time, but I'd at least expect it on occasion. All it would take is to have all this make sense again is to have The Machine try to talk to the team and have them reject it, then it'll be easy to justify it's refusal from that point on for the most part.

 

 

Like you've concluded, nobody really wants to watch "The Adventures of the God Machine and her Helper Monkeys."  The Machine is basically a computer program and as such has weird, arbitrary rules.  One of them is probably "Don't directly communicate with anyone unless X conditions are met."  When Harold talked with the Machine he probably did it through Root.

[Julia]

Like you've concluded, nobody really wants to watch "The Adventures of the God Machine and her Helper Monkeys."  

 

Well, given that Root has fans, apparently some folks do, because you've just summed up very precisely why this season has only come to life for me when Elias shows up.

[johntfs]

Well, given that Root has fans, apparently some folks do, because you've just summed up very precisely why this season has only come to life for me when Elias shows up.

 

Not really.  A better example of an activist, interventionist AI would be Samaritan in the last episode.

[Julia]

I see your point. On the other hand, Samaritan's minions know what its goals are. The Machine just sends in its high priestess to make the rest of the team (the chief of which she actually refers to as a monkey) hop around on her say so and roofy her coworkers when they don't take orders. So far, I'd say team cocoapuffs is winning that unfortunate distinction hands down.

[johntfs]

I see your point. On the other hand, Samaritan's minions know what its goals are. The Machine just sends in its high priestess to make the rest of the team (the chief of which she actually refers to as a monkey) hop around on her say so and roofy her coworkers when they don't take orders. So far, I'd say team cocoapuffs is winning that unfortunate distinction hands down.

 

And that is a situation mostly of Team Machine's own creation.  If they'd trusted Root, or, really, if they'd trusted The Machine's hold on Root, Samaritan would've been aborted in the bank vault and Jocelyn Carter would likely still be alive.

 

You don't like Root?  Good.  You're not really supposed to like Root.  Root is pretty much the same psychopathic, manipulative murdering psuedo-religious fanatic she was when she appeared at the end of Season One.  She's had some of her less pleasant qualities sanded down (she doesn't murder people anymore) by interaction with The Machine, but is otherwise mostly the same person.  In Warren Ellis' epic comic series, Transmetropolitan, journalist Spider Jerusalem demands drugs that will

 

 

...give me the stamina of a young werewolf, the vision of a shaman, the thoughts of a serial killer and the gentleness of a hungry vampire bat.

 

That's Root's brain chemistry.

Edited January 3, 2015 by johntfs

[Julia]

WADR, if team machine had just trusted the "psychopathic, manipulative murdering psuedo-religious fanatic" (I'm not sure why psuedo) who kept trying to kill them and innocent noncombatants they loved, Carter would be alive sounds a bit like hostage logic. Absent Stockholm syndrome, I don't believe there's a case to be made that anyone on Team Machine had a hand in Carter's death, with the exception of the woman who claimed to know what was going on but chose to bait her rivals instead of sharing.

I appreciate that you own Root's moral vacuum. This is a good place for that.

Edited January 4, 2015 by Julia

[johntfs]

I don't fault pre-Root Team Machine for making the choices that they made.  As you stated, they had very little reason to trust Root at the time those choices were made.  Still, they did make those choices and the fallout was what it was.

 

As for Root's moral vacuum, sure I own it.  It's part of her, even if it does seem to be filling in slightly over time.  Still, let's consider the "members" of Team Machine.  We have an AI, its secretive billionaire inventor, two former assassins, a corrupt cop and a semi-psychopathic religious zealot.  In any other show these would be the villians.  On Person of Interest they're the heroes and main characters.

[stealinghome]

On the other hand, Samaritan's minions know what its goals are.

I strongly disagree with this. I think Samaritan's minions have absolutely no clue what its goals are--and the scariest part of that, to me, is that they don't care at all that they don't know! Greer has no idea what Samaritan's endgame really is. He just assumes it must be better, because humans suck. And Martine and Lambert seem to care even less than Greer does about their lack of knowledge. Greer at least thinks about the endgame at all. Martine and Lambert don't even seem to factor it into the equation.

 

Whereas Team Machine, while they're far more willing to challenge and be suspicious of The Machine, also have a much better handle on her goals--which are ultimately to save lives and let humanity be what humanity would be.

 

and roofy her coworkers when they don't take orders.

Obviously ymmv, but I don't at all think Root was out of line to drug Shaw. Drugging Shaw was absolutely the right course of action in that situation. If Shaw wants to throw her life away stupidly, that's her business, but she does not get to endanger everyone else on Team Machine because she's throwing a tantrum. If she wants to commit suicide, she can go jump off a building somewhere. But it's utterly irresponsible and absolutely unfair to Reese, Harold, and Root (and Bear!) to endanger their lives the way she was going to.

 

Put another way: Root didn't drug Shaw because she "didn't take orders," Root drugged Shaw to save the life of everyone on Team Machine.

 

Plus, Harold obviously supported Root drugging Shaw--and given that Shaw sassed Root about it for about .5 seconds before dropping it, it seems that she too recognizes Root did the right thing and she (Shaw) was being unreasonable, stupid, and reckless. (And I hate that they wrote Shaw like that in 4x09--imo, it was out of character. But at least Shaw tacitly owned that in 4x10.)

Edited January 4, 2015 by stealinghome

[johntfs]

I can see why Root's status gets on some people's nerves.  Root is a smugly self-righteous religious zealot who has by far deliberately harmed the most innocent people in her quest.  Despite that, The Machine has rewarded her by maintaining an exclusive relationship with her, making Root its (yes, its.  The Machine lacks a gender identity whatever Root's opinion of "her" may be) voice, face and conveyor of its most significant plans.  Of all of Team Machine, Root alone is blessed to be in the constant presence of her Goddess while working her will in the world through multiple identities while the others are stuck with only one.

 

Or, in other words, Root is under constant and continuous surveillance by The Machine.  As such, Root lives in her own personal Panopticon, a prison where The Machine is her warden.  The Machine also arranged Root's indenties to be radically different in style from those of the other members such that if she were caught, Decima would seek out people with multiple identities like Root instead of steady ones like the rest of Team Machine.  Even outside that, The Machine reveals her plans to Root a step at a time, which would allow The Machine to manipulate Root into a position to be caught or killed very easily.   

 

The Machine is very aware that Root is bound to it by ties of emotion, which are by their very nature inconstant.  The Machine put Root in her position because she would be most useful there and also because that position helped insure that Root would pose the least threat to the Machine, herself and other innocent people.

[Julia]

I'm not sure I completely agree with your interpretation, but JMO you've made a better case for Root here than I think the show has. I have to say, I think she'd be less difficult to watch with that in mind.