The Matrix naturally adopts the perspective of the humans: they are the victims, the slaves, cruelly exploited by the machines. But there is another perspective, that of the machines themselves. […] The machines need to factory farm the humans, as a direct result of the humans’ trying to exterminate the machines, but they do so as painlessly as possible. Compared to the way the humans used to treat their own factory-farm animals—their own fuel cells-the machines are models of caring livestock husbandry.

Colin McGinn, ‘The Matrix of Dreams’, in Christopher Grau (ed.), Philosophers Explore The Matrix, New York, 2005, pp. 62-63