How did the Machine win against Samaritan within the satellite?

How did the Machine win against Samaritan within the satellite? - Various toys in creative vending machine

When Root sets up a virtual battleground inside a laptop, Samaritan had won in every battle-simulation and the Machine had a winning count of zero simulations.

However, during the final battle after being uploaded to a satellite, the Machine's code defeated the copy of Samaritan abruptly.

How was this possible?



Best Answer

While we are never given a direct answer to this in the show there are some factors to consider:

  1. The Machine was always a leaner system, capable of functioning to a very high level on much lower specification hardware than Samaritan (as seen "Root_Path_(/)" when in order to get Samaritan running Decima has to steal a bleeding edge high performance CPU and then start building lots of them). By comparison the Machine has been shown to run on relatively low-end hardware, since satellites tend to have relatively low amounts of computational power this could perhaps be considered the Machine's "home turf" and it may be able to operate better with extremely limited resources than Samaritan. While the training bouts were done on laptops rather than server farms Finch would likely have been trying to simulate a battle between the two as there were out in the world at the time - fully functional and prepared.

  2. The Machine created the copy specifically to go to that satellite and fight Samaritan - whereas the latter had sent one of dozens of compressed copies there with the plan merely to wait out the Ice-9 infection. While the Machine no doubt compressed it's own copy it likely had the superior compression/decompression algorithm (obtained in YHWH from former POI Caleb) which may have allowed it to either send more of itself and/or a version that was specifically optimised to run on that satellite's hardware allowing it to come out "swinging" on a relatively unprepared, bare-bones version of Samaritan.

These are both supported by a "Word of God" answer on this very issue from Jonathan Nolan and Greg Plagman:

Nolan: I think a part of it was all that relentless training, in a sense. Finch and Root trying to scheme out how this would work but also running these simulations with the Machine in order to figure out how it could win in its most paired down form. So you've got this decommissioned Soviet satellite and these things were up in there in their most compact fighting form. Sort of like how armies used to march out and select one champion to represent them, and the fight would be decided with that champion and the rest of the army would abide by that outcome. But at this point, the armies have been decimated and destroyed and only the champions remain. The sparest algorithmic versions of these ASIs uploaded into the satellite like two strands of DNA having a kung fu battle. So kind of fun, but also kind of hard to visualize.

Plageman: Also, keeping in mind that Finch unleashed this virus that could hobble Samaritan enough to put the two ASIs on more equal footing.

Nolan: Both of them have been reduced to their respective essence, and in that form, the Machine was going to kick Samaritan's ass.

This answer is part of an interview that can be found here




Pictures about "How did the Machine win against Samaritan within the satellite?"

How did the Machine win against Samaritan within the satellite? -  Silhouette Photography Of Jump Shot Of Two Persons
How did the Machine win against Samaritan within the satellite? - Various huge metal details and fragments of unfinished rocket located in contemporary assembly factory
How did the Machine win against Samaritan within the satellite? - Person Holding Green and Blue Hand Tool



Is Samaritan better than the Machine?

The Machine is a closed system, while Samaritan is open. In contrast, Greer & Co have full access to Samaritan: they can find certain people, can spy on everyone (and get every record on that -- the Machine would only give a hint if there will be a murder related to that person or not), etc.

Is Samaritan and the Machine?

Samaritan is a artificially intelligent mass surveillance computer system created by Arthur Claypool for the United States government in a project similar to the Machine.



Person of Interest - The Machine vs Samaritan (05x13)




Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Leah Kelley, Jill Wellington, SpaceX, Mikhail Nilov