P. Schuyler Miller described "Machine Made" as "a moving anticipation of Daniel Keyes' prize-winning Flowers for Algernon.[3] John Carnell selected the story for inclusion in "the first all-British science fiction anthology".[4] John Boston and Damien Broderick wrote that "While ["Machine Made"] has scant relationship to any reasonable conception either of what a computer is or what mental retardation is, the readers voted it first in the issue"; Boston and Broderick compared it to the Hugo-winning They'd Rather Be Right.[5]