Why are the machines interested in the narrator?

The machines do not seem to feel emotion. They do not care how many lives they sacrifice or mess up inside their matrix, and think nothing of rewinding decades and changing people's lives and futures. The horn-rimmed glasses man talks politely to the narrator, but does not seem particularly interested in reassuring him or explaining anything to him. The machines clearly think they are superior and that humans are something to be managed rather than trusted. They have created a fake reality for humans to live in so that they can more easily manipulate them for energy and control the world without human input. This all seems like the process of logical thought rather than emotional thought. When they defend themselves against the aliens they find the best course of action and proceed along it, taking the narrator out of the matrix and away from his life and loved ones.