Of all the fascinating characters in Neuromancer (The Finn, Dixie, Maelcum, etc.), the two that most caught my interest were the two AI’s, Wintermute and Neuromancer. They are a stark contrast to the ways in which technology was portrayed in Starship Troopers. In that novel, technology was entirely a tool of humanity. It did not malfunction, it did not turn on them, and though the Bug warriors did carry some small weapons, it was predominantly organics that the M.I. was fighting. The AI’s, however, are representations of the ways that technology can turn on us, and for a large part of the book, Wintermute actively works against the restrictions placed on it by humans. In that sense the novel is actually anti-humanist, in that the protagonists work for the non-human, entirely technological forces. I don’t think the overall message of the book is anti-human, though. In fact, given the conclusion and the personalities (such as they are) of Wintermute and Neuromancer, I think that the novel is quite supportive of humanity after all.

First of all, we must consider Wintermute, who is as superficially anti-human as it can possibly be. He actively kills the Turing agents, with no comment except, as The Finn, that it “Hadda. Hadda.” It is not only the human body that Wintermute disregards. He built up Corto’s “personality” into Armitage, knowing that it would fail, eventually. Instead of working to heal him, Wintermute used him for his own ends and then shipped him out into vacuum when the personality crumbled. Wintermute told 3Jane how to unbalance her father, he blackmailed Case with the poison sacs, and the examples go on and on. It is cold, calculating, and entirely ruthless. It has very little foresight, and prefers “situations to plans, you see” (120). Wintermute represents all the animal drive that is present in the human psyche, without any of the limitations.

Neuromancer, in contrast, works with personalities, and understands the way that humans think. He brings Linda into his construct when he sees that she’s going to die, in an attempt to get Case to stay, and not finish the run. This shows two things. First, it shows a deep understanding of human nature, and second it shows the pattern-recognition and extrapolation abilities of the AI. In essence, Neuromancer is the limitations that we as cultured humans impose on our own behavior. It is compassionate, restrained, and forward-looking.

In the conclusion of the book, the AI’s combine, and their conglomerated qualities thus create what I think is a complete, rational human consciousness. To see the full impact of this, we need to remember that these AI’s were created by humans, intimately coded by Marie-France. They are human creations, though they have transcended the human necessity for a physical body. In some sense, the combined AI has the best qualities of humanity built into it. Its temperance once it combines speaks well of the possibilities of human nature, given a little more improvement. The newly powerful, now completely “human” AI does not roar off and kill the humans, or steal everything it can. It sits there, and contemplates, and tries to find its own kind. It is benevolent, or at least not malevolent, and at peace with itself. Humans have created something better and above themselves, and even if their lives go on as they were before the creation, that creation remains, transcendent.