A Brazilian software engineer based in the US since his college years, U, as his friends usually call him, is, above all, a perfectionist. Originally an idealist who saw technology as the only way to liberate humankind from pain and suffering, his company’s involvement with the Brazilian Humanitarian Crisis has left him disillusioned, deciding to dedicate his time to making the perfect VR interface in order to escape the memories of the suffering he caused to his people.

As the film concludes we understand that Ulysses was mainly motivated by retribution; U wanted revenge from what Sophie had done to his home country of Brazil, which fell into a bloody civil war after Sophie’s for-profit attempt to use Theodore’s still nascent predicting capabilities to influence Brazilian politics. And, on another level, U also wanted payback for Sophie’s refusal to allow him to endow Theodore with a consciousness, which would – in his opinion – make it much harder for the AI to repeat the same mistake it had done in Brazil.