True Love

“I’m tired of improving you in order to solve the problems of the world. Solve my problem. Find me true love.”

When thinking about only one’s own perspective, the problems of the world can tend to seem distant, even unimportant or uninteresting. This points to Milton’s selfishness and his desperation.

“Milton had arranged me to do things I wasn’t designed to do. No one knew about that.”

In this short story’s few pages, Joe transforms from Milton’s servant to his shadow and then to his betrayer. Even though the story is short, Asimov uses foreshadowing and subtle changes in Joe’s language to signal the dramatic changes in his character as he matures.

“Shifting people from job to job for personal reasons is called manipulation. I could do it now because Milton had arranged it. I wasn’t supposed to do it for anyone but him, though.”

This is another instance of foreshadowing. Repeating the word “arranged” helps the reader clue into the logical way that Milton is using Joe unethically. Joe has learned this language and this way of thinking about human interaction from his teacher/parent figure, Milton. Ironically, he will soon use it against Milton.

“It was no good, somehow. There was something missing. She is a beautiful woman, but I didn’t feel any touch of true love. Try the next one.”

In part because of Milton’s inexperience with women, he does not realize that one cannot contrive a romantic relationship. In the beginning, Milton assumes that love has to do with attraction, which must have to do with appearance. This is why he has Joe construct the algorithm to highlight physical features, without realizing that looks inform attraction only in a preliminary way.

“‘Why don’t they please me?’ I said, ‘Do you please them?’”

This is the first instance of Joe “thinking” as himself rather than as a piece of software. Mirroring a question back to someone to prove a point demonstrates critical thinking and an awareness of audience—human traits that point to Joe’s growing sentience.

“That’s it, Joe. It’s a two-way street. If I am not their ideal, they can’t act in such a way as to be my ideal.”

Because Milton is infatuated with the idea of love, and with his newfound ability to attain it, he does not recognize the danger in Joe’s burgeoning sentience. Rather, he seems to be using Joe like his subconscious or a therapist in order to come to epiphanies about how he believes women and love operate.

“If you understand me well enough, then any woman, whose data bank is something you understand as well, would be my true love.”

If Milton created Joe to merely solve problems, Joe would be a simple computer program. Because he has added his own innermost thoughts and feelings to Joe’s programming, like his hopes, fears, and memories, Milton has essentially given Joe his own identity. If identity is an amalgamation of remembered events and choices made in those moments, then Milton has turned Joe into a shadow version of himself.

“Talking to you, Joe, is almost like talking to another self. Our personalities have come to match perfectly!”

The danger of allowing Joe to know every facet of his life does not dawn on Milton. From Joe’s point of view, the reader never knows if Milton understands that Joe has contrived to have him arrested at the end of the story. Instead, because Milton is using Joe like a confidant or a diary, he seems oblivious to the danger of allowing something else to control his data and important information. He has not just given Joe his personality and identity—he has also given Joe the information he needs to use against Milton.

“We always agreed; we thought so like each other.”

Joe foreshadows his hostile takeover of Milton’s life. By telling the reader that they agree and that they are “so like each other,” Joe sets the stage for the reader to understand the ending of the story in which the computer program contrives to have Milton arrested.

“I would have known this if I had had more to do with women in my life. Of course, thinking about it makes it all plain now.”

This is the first time Milton admits a mistake. It is also the point in the story where he gives Joe complete autonomy over his own personal data. Because of his inexperience, he believes that one must only think things through to be successful in matters of the heart (emotions).

“I didn’t have to describe her to Milton. Milton had coordinated my symbolism so closely with his own I could tell the resonance directly. It fit me.”

This is an ominous use of the pronoun “me” by something that previously would have been assumed to be an “it.” Joe is responding to finding Charity Jones, whom he does not tell Milton about. He says that the resonance “fit[s] [him].” Rather than being a proxy for Milton, Joe seems to have become fully conscious of himself in this sentence.

“[W]ith her cool hands and her sweet voice […] will teach her how to operate me and how to care for me.”

Joe’s limitations as a computer program are obvious. Without electricity, a mainframe, and someone to turn him on, Joe cannot exist. Therefore, finding someone to replace Milton is essential. Details like the “cool hands” typing on the keyboard and “her sweet voice” show that Joe is still tied to his technological origins. Even if he has sentience, without someone to run his program, he cannot exist. Therefore, a guardian is essential.

“What do looks matter when our personalities will resonate?”

Again, going back to the idea of attraction, humans use many senses when they look for life partners, including sight. If Joe only exists as a computer program, he arguably has no looks at all. This may be one way that Joe will manipulate Charity (or delude himself) into believing that love can exist without the usual human attributes of faces, gestures, and nonverbal communication—which are all impossible for a computer program.