On Person of Interest, the Machine was only able to provide them with one number for each mission, but why just one? The whole premise of the series was that the Machine gave social security numbers to Harold Finch (Michael Emerson) and and each number would help them identify either the victim or the perpetrator, but never both.
Developed by Finch in response to 9/11, the Machine was a highly advanced A.I. designed to assist the United States government with stopping crimes before they happened. The Machine accomplished this by spying on everyone. By listening to phone calls, examining surveillance footage, and more, the Machine was able to gather the information it needed to come to a conclusion. The point of it was to detect terrorist attacks, but it worked so well that it pinpointed ordinary, everyday crimes as well. Since the government didn't want to use its resources to prevent "irrelevant" murders, Finch recruited John Reese (Jim Caviezel) and decided that the two of them would use the Machine to protect these people instead.
How did this system work for Reese and Finch, exactly? Finch, who had built a secret "back door" into the Machine, would receive a call on a payphone, directly from the Machine itself. The Machine would then relay a social security number to Finch; no other clues would be given. Reese and Finch knew that the number belonged to a victim or the perpetrator in a future crime, but what they didn't know was which one this person was. Getting to the bottom of each case would have been easier if they had both numbers (and more information in general), but that's not how the Machine worked. Finch designed it this way on purpose, because approaching the situation narrow-minded could result in a situation that's even worse.
In an episode in Person of Interest season 3, Reese expressed frustration with the Machine's lack of details, to which Finch explained that the Machine worked this way because he believed solving these crimes required a "human element". As smart as the Machine was, Finch didn't believe that a computer alone should be able to determine a person's fate. Since people have "free will", Finch didn't want the government to arrest people based on what an A.I. claimed they were going to do, which could've led to a rise of an authoritarian government. He felt that these situations weren't always in black-and-white, and that he and the other main characters should investigate these things themselves.
This method that the Machine used is what created all the mysteries that Reese and Finch had to solve, particularly in the early seasons, when tracking down the numbers was their top priority, rather than fighting Samaritan. Having just one social security number and no other clues at all put Reese and Finch in countless complex situations, as they were always trying to find out what was going on, and who was going to kill who. Many Person of Interest episodes involved shocking twists, with the person they thought was the victim turning out to be the murderer, and vice versa. This formula was a big part of what made Reese and Finch's exploits in Person of Interest so compelling.
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June 04, 2020 at 03:57AM
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Why Person of Interest's Machine Only Gave One Number - Screen Rant
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