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On Person of Interest, most people on Team Machine refer to it as "she". To me, that's sort of clear for Root, not so clear for Finch and even less clear for others. Why do they do that?

P.S. I don't recall perfectly, but Samaritan is mostly called "it" and not "he". But should it be a "he" in contrast to the Machine?

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  • Why do people tend to refer to their cars as "she"? I think its probably a similar reason. My perception is that it identifies a romantic relationship between the human and the object. Not romantic in the traditional boy meets girl sense but in a broader sense of the term.
    – sanpaco
    Commented Mar 31, 2016 at 21:32
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    I think Finch only does it since Root does it. And the others probably by habit. And for Root it's rather clear, mother analogies anyone? Interesting question, though.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Mar 31, 2016 at 21:36
  • All right, I agree with mostly following Root. But then why does Root think the Machine is female? She also sometimes thinks the Machine is God, who is traditionally male.
    – Chiffa
    Commented Apr 2, 2016 at 16:13
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    @Chiffa Gd is traditionally male, but a number of groups would prefer the use of "she" or at least equal footing on the gender issue: encrypted.google.com/…
    – Dave
    Commented May 19, 2016 at 12:16
  • Not relevant to person of interest universe , in my mother toungue "Hindi" , we have gender for every object and when I think of Machine, it will be "she". Funny part , there is no grammer rule , we ever learnt in for referring objects to particular gender , however we all Hindi Speaker are consistent in using them
    – Panther
    Commented Dec 4, 2016 at 15:10

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Finch never referred to the Machine as a "she" until after Root did it; it appears to be something he has picked up from her. Before Root effectively assigned a gender to the Machine, Finch and Reese always simply used "it" or "the Machine" with no sense of any familiarity.

Now that

Root has died and the Machine has decided to use her voice to communicate in her memory,

it seems likely that the use of "she" will stick.

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