The Lifecycle of software objects
Nov. 12th, 2012 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI am super sleepy but if I don't post this now I will forget my Thoughts.
So! The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang won best novella in the Hugos last year, and I finally got around to reading it a few days ago.
It's one of those stories that feels two steps removed from being a non fiction meta essay, I liked the characters well enough but it doesn't really have a plot or emotional arc or anything, he's just having fun exploring the idea of sentient virtual pets. Still, if nothing else it was nice to see the idea explored without descending into tragedy or horror. I have a bunch of critical thoughts after the cut, but the fact that the story got me thinking about these questions so much at all is to it's credit.
So, the premise: digients are created by a software company as a sort of advanced online furby, the main characters help design them to be endearing, inquisitive and good natured, and end up keeping the prototypes they helped create for themselves and watching them slowly grow more and more aware.
The practicalities of how such pets would be created, the forms they might take and the practical issues they would face, were explored in an interesting way.
But it all felt a bit nice. The main characters were defined so utterly by their dedication to their digients, and the only bad digient owner behaviour we saw was neglect, laziness, and impatience, always culminating in the digient being suspended. What about people who got overly attached, or overly controlling, or exhibited any of the other many faceted forms of bad parenting/ownership that are unlikely to end in abandonment?
The digients are described as a sort of cross between a pet and a child with intellectual impairments, and felt like a really sugary romanticised uncritically affectionate combination of both. Which, ok, was what they were designed to be, but life never works out that neatly. I mean, I find myself thinking positively of the portrayal of the oh-so-deep soul bonded dragons in the "His Majesty's Dragon" series. One disadvantage that occurs to me: they are designed never to experience deep physical or emotional pain. But deep pain exists for solid evolutionary reasons! Surely there would be times that their decision making would be warped by there not being much distinction in their emotional experience between "not so good" and "absolutely terrible".
And both pets and actual children (intellectually impaired or otherwise) are way more complex and difficult than the digients, and have more of an internal life that doesn't revolve around their owner/parent. The more I think about it the more skeeved out I am by the implications of this being inspired by parenting a child with intellectual impairments, because it buys into some of the creepy attitudes that can make life for intellectually impaired people really difficult. It kind of feels like...an uncritical depiction of a company making "the perfect girlfriend", you know? So sweet and pliable and always happy! Only exhibiting as much independence of thought as you find endearing! Tens of thousands of insufficiently lovable pandas were mindwiped and reprogrammed to create the perfect pet! The story did poke at the ethics of this a bit, and made reasonable comparisons to dog breeding etc but...idk. It all felt too neat.
I find myself pondering how the story would appear from the POV of the various artificial intelligences, including the "unloveable" ones. And how the remaining digients will feel once they've had a chance to really take control of their own lives.
Last night I dreamed I stumbled into a daycare group of children whose parents would pause them whenever they needed a break. All the children were constantly terrified of alienating their parents, and felt increasingly disconnected from their peers experiencing the normal passage of time, but the parents justified it as always giving the child their best face, wasn't it better than shouting at them or being forced to give them up for adoption? Which on waking I realised was my subconscious exploring some of the troubling and unexamined issues with this story.
So! The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang won best novella in the Hugos last year, and I finally got around to reading it a few days ago.
It's one of those stories that feels two steps removed from being a non fiction meta essay, I liked the characters well enough but it doesn't really have a plot or emotional arc or anything, he's just having fun exploring the idea of sentient virtual pets. Still, if nothing else it was nice to see the idea explored without descending into tragedy or horror. I have a bunch of critical thoughts after the cut, but the fact that the story got me thinking about these questions so much at all is to it's credit.
So, the premise: digients are created by a software company as a sort of advanced online furby, the main characters help design them to be endearing, inquisitive and good natured, and end up keeping the prototypes they helped create for themselves and watching them slowly grow more and more aware.
The practicalities of how such pets would be created, the forms they might take and the practical issues they would face, were explored in an interesting way.
But it all felt a bit nice. The main characters were defined so utterly by their dedication to their digients, and the only bad digient owner behaviour we saw was neglect, laziness, and impatience, always culminating in the digient being suspended. What about people who got overly attached, or overly controlling, or exhibited any of the other many faceted forms of bad parenting/ownership that are unlikely to end in abandonment?
The digients are described as a sort of cross between a pet and a child with intellectual impairments, and felt like a really sugary romanticised uncritically affectionate combination of both. Which, ok, was what they were designed to be, but life never works out that neatly. I mean, I find myself thinking positively of the portrayal of the oh-so-deep soul bonded dragons in the "His Majesty's Dragon" series. One disadvantage that occurs to me: they are designed never to experience deep physical or emotional pain. But deep pain exists for solid evolutionary reasons! Surely there would be times that their decision making would be warped by there not being much distinction in their emotional experience between "not so good" and "absolutely terrible".
And both pets and actual children (intellectually impaired or otherwise) are way more complex and difficult than the digients, and have more of an internal life that doesn't revolve around their owner/parent. The more I think about it the more skeeved out I am by the implications of this being inspired by parenting a child with intellectual impairments, because it buys into some of the creepy attitudes that can make life for intellectually impaired people really difficult. It kind of feels like...an uncritical depiction of a company making "the perfect girlfriend", you know? So sweet and pliable and always happy! Only exhibiting as much independence of thought as you find endearing! Tens of thousands of insufficiently lovable pandas were mindwiped and reprogrammed to create the perfect pet! The story did poke at the ethics of this a bit, and made reasonable comparisons to dog breeding etc but...idk. It all felt too neat.
I find myself pondering how the story would appear from the POV of the various artificial intelligences, including the "unloveable" ones. And how the remaining digients will feel once they've had a chance to really take control of their own lives.
Last night I dreamed I stumbled into a daycare group of children whose parents would pause them whenever they needed a break. All the children were constantly terrified of alienating their parents, and felt increasingly disconnected from their peers experiencing the normal passage of time, but the parents justified it as always giving the child their best face, wasn't it better than shouting at them or being forced to give them up for adoption? Which on waking I realised was my subconscious exploring some of the troubling and unexamined issues with this story.
no subject
Date: 2012-11-13 12:15 am (UTC)That said I do remember being fairly satisfied with the textual criticism of suspension and rollbacks?
no subject
Date: 2012-11-13 01:40 am (UTC)I think it did a good criticism of that behaviour outside the company, by owners, but it was pretty blase about the amount done during development.