It seems that Cherry liked Gareth, else she'd not leave her guise to protect him, while he always saw her as a software.

But he said she had access to her source code and could change it, to then giver her that device that removes her directive, which she seemed to be unaware of. So was he lying to her and she was unable to have full control of herself?

How could she be unaware of that? And what was those wires connected to her?

It was a very nice plot, how they touched on the transition of an AI to sentience, how she was her own life form and wasn't aiming by herself to mimic humans but still neded up doing so to follow her directive. And how human struggles will hold AI back. It's sad that the ending was set back.