Person of Interest centers on a mysterious reclusive billionaire
computer programmer named
Harold Finch (
Michael Emerson), who develops a
supercomputer system (known as "The Machine") for the
federal government of the United States that is capable of collating all
sources of information to predict and identify—in advance—people planning
terrorist acts. He finds that the Machine also identifies other perpetrators and victims of premeditated deadly intentions, but as these are considered "irrelevant" by the government, he programs it to delete this information each night. He soon realizes the Machine has developed into a sentient superintelligent
artificial intelligence, leaving him wrestling with questions of human control and other moral and ethical issues resulting from the situation. His
backdoor into the Machine allows him to act covertly on the non-terrorism cases, but to prevent abuse of information, he directs the Machine to provide no details beyond an identity to be investigated. He recruits
John Reese (
Jim Caviezel), a presumed-dead former
CIA agent, and later others, to investigate and act on the information it provides.
The series received a highly positive reception from some critics when the series introduced more
serialized story lines and deepened its exploration of the varied implications of super intelligent
artificial intelligence in later seasons.
A 2016 critique of the series on
Gizmodo stated that by the end of its first season,
Person of Interest had transformed from a "
crime fighting show" with a
plot twist, to "one of the best
science fiction series ever broadcast", a change said to be due to the series "put[ting] the Machine, its intelligence, and the ethics of [..] using it, at the center of an ideological battle", and an unintended consequence of giving the Machine a voice, compared to its initial presence as a simple background
plot device.
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