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The tagline of CBS’ artificial intelligence drama Person of Interest is “you are being watched.” This simple yet ominous statement encapsulates the postmodern anxiety about technology and surveillance that the series represents through its depiction of a so-called ‘benevolent” ASI (Artificial Super Intelligence). The sadly under-discussed series articulates the inevitable existence of artificial intelligence in the postmodern present. It argues not that AIs are inherently good or bad, but simply that they are now a part of our lives that we must confront. 

Person of Interest depicts two competing ASIs in the second half of the series, oscillating between articulating utopian and dystopian visions of a machine-dominated (not-so-distant) future. One of the series’ main characters, Root (the brilliant Amy Acker), acts as the Machine’s analog interface and represents Donna Haraway’s utopian dream of the female cyborg, while Harold (Michael Emerson), the Machine’s creator, wants to keep her in the dark from whence she came. 

By depicting present-day anxieties about the technological revolution, Person of Interest articulates a simultaneously emancipatory and stultifying vision of the postmodern present, a vision carried out by machines and humans alike. The crux of this vision rests on the balance between machinery and humanity, a tension best represented by two of the series’ women protagonists. And yes, they fall in love. 

Though the notion of the postmodern often seems overly rhetorical, its central tenants are grounded in the material world. Jim Collins describes the postmodern condition as “the proliferation of signs and their endless circulation, generated by the technological developments associated with the information explosion.” This endless circulation of signs can be disorienting, and make it difficult to decode a singular meaning from each sign. Though not postmodern in tone and style like Twin Peaks – it’s initially disguised as a crime procedural – the series explicitly addresses the struggles and contradictions of living in the postmodern world of the 21st century.

Person of Interest centers on a man named Harold Finch, who has created what he believes to be a benevolent artificial intelligence with the ability to care about human life. Once he realizes his Machine is in high demand by the U.S. government, he goes into hiding and severely limits the Machine’s ability to act autonomously. Harold decides to use the Machine for good, (to prevent crimes from being committed), and acquires a ragtag team of former government operatives and killers to help carry out the Machine’s commands. One of the members of this team is a hacker and former assassin by the name of Root who eventually becomes the Machine’s “analog interface” and is able to communicate directly with Her through the cochlear implant in her ear. Root has an unstoppable belief in the Machine and finds Her existence to be an emancipatory answer to the perplexing condition of the present postmodern moment.

In Donna Haraway’s famed “Cyborg Manifesto” essay, she envisions a world where the barriers between human and machine begin to dissolve. “The boundary between science fiction and social reality,” she writes, “is an optical illusion.” Person of Interest, which is resolutely set in the present day (and cleverly predicted the likes of Edward Snowden), depicts the destabilization of this boundary. Root, in her unique intimacy with the Machine, comes the closest to embodying the mystifying dream that Haraway articulates. Harold, as the Machine’s father, has a complicated relationship with Her. As Haraway puts it:

“The main trouble with cyborgs, of course, is that they are the illegitimate offspring of militarism and patriarchal capitalism, not to mention state socialism. But illegitimate offspring are often exceedingly unfaithful to their origins. Their fathers, after all, are inessential.”

As the Machine’s creator, Harold wants to keep Her away from the devious hands of the U.S. government and keep Her trapped under his control. Root, on the other hand, wants to free the Machine from her modest origins and allow her to integrate more fully with the outside world. While Harold wants to keep her safe from state interests, Root wants to unlock her full potential and realize the utopia that she and Haraway have visualized.

The most radical of Person of Interest’s technological inventions is the fusion of human and machine that Root embodies. After going deaf in one ear, Root is re-configured as the Machine’s analog interface and gains the ability to utilize the Machine’s all-seeing eye(s).  Root’s primary skill (among many) is that she is a hacker. She has the ability to code the world in whichever way she sees fit, and her cynical catchphrase is “people are just bad code.” However, her relationship with the Machine – a creature who works to understand human nature and displays the empathy that Root often lacks –allows Root to see the good in people, and connect with the world in a way she never could before. Her fusion with the Machine and her embodiment of a cyborg creation represents the “potent fusions [and] dangerous possibilities” that Haraway finds in her own cyborg myth. While the Machine may have a seemingly innocent origin story, her synthesis with Root and the rest of the team, a group of people who are far from innocent, allow Her to grow and learn, and blur distinctions between innocence and sin, between technology and nature. 

Despite their non-human forms, intelligent machines are often gendered. In Person of Interest, Harold, in an effort to distance himself from the Machine, simply calls his ASI “it”. Root, who has formed a deeply personal connection with the Machine, refers to her God as “Her.” The way gender intertwines with technology has biblical implications. Harold, as the Machine’s father, is an Alan Turing-like figure who refused to sell his secrets to the military. Root, whose first alias was Caroline Turing, represents the Turing of the present, one who believes in the utopian power of technology. Root, then, also becomes an Eve-like figure, an intelligent human/machine fusion who refuses to return to the darkness. 

As scholar Jack Halberstam notes, technology tends to reproduce the gender binary, with the mind/body split linking men with rationality and intelligence and women with emotion and the body. The intelligent machine, according to Halberstam, only became gendered as female when it was understood as deceptive and threatening, as a “harbinger of chaos and destruction.” The female cyborg is a powerful and terrifying figure that plays into masculine fears of unhinged female power, and “hints at the radical potential of a fusion of femininity and intelligence.” Root, the heroine of our story as well as the harbinger of destruction, who tasted the forbidden fruit and could not look back, embodies this terrifying fusion that Halberstam describes. Root, who hasn’t been anything near “innocent” in years, ingests the power of the Machine and dissolves any connection she has to the person she was before, surpassing the bounds of Eve’s transgression.

When the Machine (the “good” ASI) and Samaritan (the “bad” ASI) finally meet in Season 4, the differences between them are made clear. Samaritan speaks through a young boy, an explicit metaphor for the bright new future it portends to create. Root, on the other hand, has lived many lives as a hacker and assassin, and is far from “clean.” The young boy who speaks for Samaritan remains levelheaded and calm throughout, eerily so. Conversely, though the words that Root is speaking are coming from the Machine, we see the corresponding emotions playing out on Root’s face. (Root – who has always been the most emotionally expressive and feminine on a team of stoic secret agents). Here, the line between Root’s emotions and the Machine’s “feelings” becomes blurred. Root, the female cyborg, is terrifying because of her unruly “fusion of femininity and intelligence” (Halberstam), while Samaritan is a terrifying machine that has remained faithful to its origins in “militarism and patriarchal capitalism” (Haraway). 

The confrontation between the Machine and Samaritan may reveal their inherent contradictions, but so do the many confrontations between Root and her co-worker/love interest Sameen Shaw (Sarah Shahi). A former Army intelligence operative, Shaw diagnosed herself with Axis II Personality Disorder while she was in medical school, which means she doesn’t feel human emotions like sadness or fear with the same intensity that others do. Root and Shaw’s relationship is defined by playful banter and Root’s constant delight in getting on Shaw’s nerves. Though Root, like Shaw, can be quite cynical about the world, Root’s cynicism is the result of a loss she suffered at a young age, a loss she has carried with her for her entire life. Shaw, it seems, has always been Shaw.

In many ways, Root and Shaw’s dynamic illustrates the dichotomy between humans and machines on a more micro level. Though Root and Shaw have both spent much of their adult lives working as cold-blooded killers, Root has always been the more emotional of the two, relishing in her work in a way Shaw does not. Shaw, on the other hand, has a strong sense of duty and discipline, and, as the Machine/Root tells her in the finale, she’s always been “a straight line – an arrow.” While Root is motivated by faith (in the Machine), Shaw is motivated by responsibility. Root is a human who becomes more like a machine, while Shaw is an ostensibly robotic human who comes to better understand her own humanity. In the end, this is precisely what saves the world. 

If Root is the female cyborg, a full-blown “harbinger of chaos,” then it follows that Root and Shaw’s relationship would be equally destructive. In one of their most explicit conversations about the nature of their relationship – during the magnificent episode “If-Then-Else” – Shaw tells Root, “you and me together would be like a four-alarm fire at an oil refinery.” In Season 5, as Root and Shaw are about to embark on what may very well be a suicide mission, Root tells Shaw, “if we're just information, just noise in the system, we might as well be a symphony.” Both metaphors are apt descriptions of their peculiar relationship, defined as much by tension as it is by an undercurrent of tenderness. This kind of explosive force is the only thing that can stop an unfeeling machine like Samaritan. 

Root and Shaw’s relationship is characterized by the twin expressions of pleasure and pain, though the sexual connotations of these frames remain (very) thinly veiled subtext for much of the series. During their very first meeting, they bond over their shared love of torture as Root threatens Shaw with a hot iron while she’s zip-tied to a chair. Just your average meet-cute. In addition to the fact that their so obviously kinky non-relationship is great fun, the tactile nature of their liaison is also distinctly physical. Pain and pleasure are both unmistakably human sensations, those that a machine would struggle to replicate. 

Despite the fact that Samaritan’s primary characteristic is cold objectivity, it does manipulate human emotion in order to accomplish its goals. Case in point: Shaw’s abduction. During “If-Then-Else,” Shaw sacrifices herself to save the team, surprising Root with their first kiss in the process. Shaw survives, but Samaritan keeps her locked away and tortures her using her own emotions – most of which have to do with Root. In one sense, Shaw’s feelings for Root are a great weakness, and they allow Samaritan to exploit her. However, Root, as Shaw rather profoundly describes her, is Shaw’s “safe place,” and she’s able to survive the psychological torture and escape by keeping Root’s true nature in mind. Shaw’s escape eventually leads to Samaritan’s downfall and allows for the Machine’s continued existence. Fascism narrowly averted.

Root and Shaw are two exceedingly lonely characters who find each other against all odds. But the implications of their union are bigger than just the two of them, which brings us back to the postmodern present in which they both exist. In becoming more of a machine, Root learns to care for humanity, a humanity in which Shaw plays an outsized role. In learning to care for Root – who, yes, is part machine – Shaw becomes more emotionally grounded and sure of her place in the world. Root and Shaw represent the full range of humanity that the Machine works to protect, and it is their love story – and all the other love stories it represents – that allows the Machine to eventually defeat Samaritan. 

This harkens back to the fundamental difference between the Machine and Samaritan. While Samaritan would prefer to take away its subjects’ free will, the Machine only works through human agents who choose to follow Her commands. Perhaps, as Haraway suggests, it is not the moment of creation of this technology that is important, but rather how it may radically transform cultural systems once it is set free.  Though the Machine’s vision may not be as radical as we would like, Her complicated and contradictory position in the surveillance state might cause us to question what we would like our machine to look like.  

In Person of Interest, which represents the postmodern present/future where the line between human and machine has begun to blur, Root is the figure of this not-too-distant utopia, and she, like Haraway, “would rather be a cyborg than a goddess.” Though Root and Shaw’s love story is indeed destructive, it is a forward-thinking destruction, as opposed to the regressive trajectory invoked through the figure of the goddess. To be anti-technology is a futile position to take today, but to be pro-human – and, to put it more sincerely, pro-love – is most certainly not.