The Lifecycle of Software Objects

by Ted Chiang

  Ana sees Pearson scrutinizing her, and decides there’s no point in trying to lie. “No,” she says. “What I want is for Jax to have a chance at a fuller life.”

  Pearson nods.”You’d like Jax to be a corporation one day, right? Have some sort of legal personhood?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  “And I’ll bet Jax wants the same thing, right? To be incorporated?”

  “For the most part, yes.”

  Pearson nods again, his suspicions confirmed. “That’s a deal-breaker for us. It’s nice that they’re fun to talk to, but all the attention you’ve given your digients has encouraged them to think of themselves as persons.”

  “Why is that a deal-breaker?” But she knows the answer already.

  “We aren’t looking for superintelligent employees, we’re looking for superintelligent products. You’re offering us the former, and I can’t blame you; no one can spend as many years as you have teaching a digient and still think of it as a product. But our business isn’t based on that kind of sentiment.”

  Ana has been pretending it wasn’t there, but now Pearson has stated it baldly: the fundamental incompatibility between Exponential’s goals and hers. They want something that responds like a person, but isn’t owed the same obligations as a person, and that’s something she can’t give them.

  No one can give it to them, because it’s an impossibility. The years she spent raising Jax didn’t just make him fun to talk to, didn’t just provide him with hobbies and a sense of humor. It was what gave him all the attributes Exponential was looking for: fluency at navigating the real world, creativity at solving new problems, judgment you could entrust an important decision to. Every quality that made a person more valuable than a database was a product of experience.

  She wants to tell them that Blue Gamma was righter than it knew: experience isn’t merely the best teacher, it’s the only teacher. If she’s learned anything raising Jax, it’s that there are no shortcuts; if you want to create the common sense that comes from twenty years of being in the world, you need to devote twenty years to the task. You can’t assemble an equivalent collection of heuristics in less time; experience is algorithmically incompressible.

  And even though it’s possible to take a snapshot of all that experience and duplicate it ad infinitum, even though it’s possible to sell copies cheaply or give them away for free, each of the resulting digients would still have lived a lifetime. Each one would have once seen the world with new eyes, have had hopes fulfilled and hopes dashed, have learned how it felt to tell a lie and how it felt to be told one.

  Which means each one would deserve some respect. Respect that Exponential can’t afford to give.

  Ana makes one final attempt. “These digients could still make money for you as employees. You could–”

  Pearson shakes his head. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, and I wish you the best of luck, but it’s not a good match for Exponential. If these digients were going to be products, the potential profits might be worth the risk. But if all they’re going to be is employees, that’s a different situation; we can’t justify such a large investment for so little return.”

  Of course not, she thinks. Who could? Only someone who’s a fanatic, someone who’s motivated by love. Someone like her.

  #

  Ana is sending a message to Derek about the failed meeting with Exponential when the robot body comes to life. “How meeting go?” asks Jax, but he can read her expression well enough to answer the question himself. “Is my fault? They not like what I show them?”

  “No, you did great, Jax. They just don’t like digients; I made a mistake in thinking I could change their minds.”

  “Worth trying,” says Jax.

  “I suppose it was.”

  “You okay?”

  “I’ll be fine,” she assures him. Jax gives her a hug, and then walks the body back to the charging platform and returns to Data Earth. Sitting at her desk, staring at a blank screen, Ana contemplates the user group’s remaining options. As far as she can tell, there’s only one: working for Polytope and trying to convince them that the Neuroblast engine is worth porting. All she has to do is wear the InstantRapport patch and join their experiment in industrialized caregiving.

  Whatever else one might say about Polytope, the company understands the value of real-time interaction in a way that Exponential does not. Sophonce digients might be content to be left alone in a hothouse, but that’s not a viable shortcut if you want them to become productive individuals. Someone is going to have to spend time with them, and Polytope recognizes that.

  Her objection is to Polytope’s strategy for getting people to spend that time. Blue Gamma’s strategy had been to make the digients lovable, while Polytope was starting with unlovable digients and using pharmaceuticals to make people love them. It seems clear to her that Blue Gamma’s approach was the right one, not just more ethical but more effective.

  Indeed, maybe it was too effective, considering the situation she’s in now: she’s faced with the biggest expense of her entire life, and it’s for her digient. It’s not what anyone at Blue Gamma expected, all those years ago, but perhaps they should have. The idea of love with no strings attached is as much a fantasy as what Binary Desire is selling. Loving someone means making sacrifices for them.

  Which is the only reason Ana’s considering working for Polytope. Under any other circumstances, she’d be insulted by the offer of a job that required the use of InstantRapport: she has as much experience working with digients as anyone in the world, yet Polytope is implying that she can’t be an effective trainer without pharmaceutical intervention. Training digients–like training animals–is a job, and a professional can do her job without having to be in love with a particular assignment.

  At the same time, she knows the difference that affection can make in the training process, how it enables patience when patience is needed most. The idea that such affection can be manufactured isn’t appealing, but she can’t deny the realities of modern neuropharmacology: if her brain is flooded with oxytocin every time she’s training Sophonce digients, it’s going to have an effect on her feelings toward them whether she wants it to or not.

  The only question is whether that’s something she can tolerate. She’s confident that the InstantRapport patch won’t distract her from taking care of Jax; no Sophonce digient is going to displace Jax in her affections. And if working for Polytope is the best chance of getting Neuroblast ported, she’s willing to do it.

  Ana just wishes Kyle understood; she has always made it clear that Jax’s welfare comes first, and up until now Kyle has never had a problem with that. She doesn’t want their relationship to end because of this job, but she’s been with Jax longer than she’s been with any boyfriend; if it comes down to it, she knows who she’ll choose.

  Chapter Ten

  The message from Ana about the failed meeting is short, but to Derek it conveys plenty. He’s heard the tone in her voice when she has talked about this possibility before, so he knows she’s preparing herself to accept Polytope’s job offer.

  This is Ana’s last-ditch attempt to get Neuroblast ported, nothing more. No one likes the idea, but she’s an adult, she’s weighed the costs and benefits and made her decision. If she’s willing to do it, the least he can do is be supportive.

  Except that he can’t. Not when there’s an alternative: accepting Binary Desire’s offer.

  After his earlier conversation with Marco and Polo, Derek privately contacted Janelle Chase to ask her if the digients’ desire to be incorporated wouldn’t render them unsuitable for Binary Desire’s purposes. She told him that Binary Desire’s customers will be free to file articles of incorporation on the copies they’ve purchased. In fact, if their feelings toward their digients become as strong as Binary Desire hopes, she expects that many of them will do so. It’s the right answer as far as he’s concerned, but part of him hoped they’d give the wrong one, providing him with a clear reason
to refuse their proposal. Instead, the decision remains his to make. His, and Marco’s.

  He’s thought about the argument Ana articulated, about the digients not being competent to accept Binary Desire’s offer because of their lack of experience with romantic relationships and jobs. The argument makes sense if you think of the digients as being like human children. It also means that as long as they’re confined to Data Earth, as long as their lives are so radically sheltered, they’ll never become mature enough to make a decision of this magnitude.

  But perhaps the standards for maturity for a digient shouldn’t be as high as they are for a human; maybe Marco is as mature as he needs to be to make this decision. Marco seems entirely comfortable thinking of himself as a digient rather than a human. It’s possible he doesn’t fully appreciate the consequences of what he’s suggesting, but Derek can’t shake the feeling that Marco in fact understands his own nature better than Derek does. Marco and Polo aren’t human, and maybe thinking of them as if they were is a mistake, forcing them to conform to his expectations instead of letting them be themselves. Is it more respectful to treat him like a human being, or to accept that he isn’t one?

  Under other circumstances this would be an academic question, something he could postpone for later discussion, but instead it ties directly into the decision he is facing here and now. If he accepts Binary Desire’s offer, there’ll be no need for Ana to take the job at Polytope, so the question becomes: is it better for Marco to have his brain chemistry altered than for Ana to have hers?

  Ana knows what she’d be getting into by agreeing to it, more so than Marco does. But Ana is a person, and no matter how amazing he thinks Marco is, he values Ana more. If one of them has to undergo neurochemical manipulation, he doesn’t want it to be her.

  Derek brings up the contract that Binary Desire sent on his screen. Then he calls Marco and Polo over in their robot bodies.

  “Ready sign contract?” asks Marco.

  “You know you shouldn’t do this if it’s just to help the others,” says Derek. “You should do it because it’s what you want to do.” Then he wonders if that’s really true.

  “You not need keep asking me,” says Marco. “I feel same as before, want do this.”

  “What about you, Polo?”

  “Yes, agree.”

  The digients are willing, even eager, and perhaps that should be enough to settle the matter. But then there are the other considerations, purely selfish ones.

  If Ana takes the job with Polytope, it will create a rift between her and Kyle, one that Derek might benefit from. It’s not an admirable thought, but he can’t pretend it hasn’t occurred to him. Whereas if he accepts Binary Desire’s offer, the rift created will be between him and Ana; it’ll ruin his chances of ever getting together with her. Can he give that up?

  Maybe he never had a chance with Ana; maybe he’s been fooling himself for all these years. In which case he’ll be better off if he lets go of that fantasy, if he frees himself from yearning for something that’ll never happen.

  “What you waiting for?” asks Marco.

  “Nothing,” says Derek.

  With the digients watching, he signs the contract from Binary Desire and sends it to Janelle Chase.

  “When I go to Binary Desire?” asks Marco.

  “We’ll take a snapshot of you after I get a countersigned copy of the contract,” he replies. “Then we’ll send it to them.”

  “Okay,” says Marco. As the digients talk excitedly about what this means, Derek thinks about what to say to Ana. He can’t tell her he’s doing it for her, of course. She’d feel horribly guilty if she thought he was sacrificing Marco for her benefit. This is his decision, and it’s better that Ana put the blame on him.

  #

  Ana and Jax are playing Jerk Vector, a racing game that Ana recently added to Data Earth; they pilot their hovercars across a landscape as hilly as egg-crate foam. Ana manages to gain enough velocity within a basin that she can jump across a nearby ravine, while Jax doesn’t make it, and his hovercar tumbles spectacularly to the bottom.

  “Wait me catch up,” he says over the intercom.

  “Okay,” Ana says, and sets her hovercar in neutral. While she’s waiting for Jax to ascend the switchback trail along the ravine wall, she switches to another window to check her messages. What she sees startles her.

  Felix has sent a message to the entire user group, triumphantly beginning a countdown until humanity’s first contact with the Xenotherians. Initially Ana wonders if she’s misunderstanding Felix because of his eccentric use of language, but a couple of messages from others in the user group confirm that the Neuroblast port is underway and Binary Desire is paying for it. Someone in the user group has sold their digient as a sex toy.

  Then she sees a message saying that Derek was the one, that he sold Marco. She’s about to post a reply saying that it can’t be true, but she stops herself. Instead, she switches back to the Data Earth window.

  “Jax, I’ve got to make a call. Why don’t you practice jumping the ravine for a while?”

  “You become sorry,” says Jax. “I beat you next race.”

  Ana switches the game into practice mode so Jax can try jumping the ravine again without having to climb up from the bottom each time he misses. Then she opens up a video phone window and calls up Derek.

  “Tell me it’s not true,” she says, but one look at his face confirms that it is. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way. I was going to call you, but–”

  Ana’s so astonished she can barely find the words. “Why did you do it?” Derek hesitates so long that she says, “Was it for the money?”

  “No! Of course not. I just decided that Marco’s arguments made sense, and that he was old enough to choose.”

  “We talked about that. You agreed that it was better to wait until he had more experience.”

  “I know. But then I–I decided I was being overly cautious.”

  “Overly cautious? You’re not letting Marco risk scraping his knee; Binary Desire is going to perform brain surgery on him. How can you be too cautious about that?”

  He pauses, and then says, “I realized it was time to let go.”

  “Let go?” As if the idea of protecting Marco and Polo were some childish fancy he’d outgrown. “I didn’t know you thought of it that way.”

  “I didn’t either, until recently.”

  “Does this mean you don’t plan on incorporating Marco and Polo someday?”

  “No, I still plan to do that. I just won’t be as–” Again he hesitates. “Fixated.”

  “Not as fixated.” Ana wonders how well she knew Derek at all. “Good for you, I guess.”

  He looks hurt by that, which is fine with her. “It’s good for everyone,” he says. “The digients get access to Real Space–”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Really, I think it’s for the best,” he says, but he doesn’t seem to believe it himself.

  “How can it be for the best?” she asks. Derek doesn’t say anything, and she just stares at him.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” says Ana, and closes the phone window. Thinking about the ways Marco might be used–without ever realizing that he’s being used–makes her heart break. You can’t save them all, she reminds herself. But it never occurred to her that Marco might be one of those at risk. She assumed Derek felt the same way she does, that he understood the need to make sacrifices.

  In her Data Earth window she can see Jax gleefully piloting his hovercar up and down slopes like a kid on a trackless rollercoaster. She doesn’t want to tell him about the deal with Binary Desire right now; they would have to discuss what it means for Marco, and she doesn’t have the energy for that conversation right now. For the moment, all she wants to do is watch him and, tentatively, try to get used to the idea that the Neuroblast port is actually underway. It’s a peculiar sensation. She can’t call it relief, because of the cost entailed, but it’s undeniably a good thing that
this enormous obstacle to Jax’s future has been removed, and she didn’t have to take the job with Polytope to do it. It’ll be months before the port is finished, but the time will pass quickly now that the destination is known. Jax will be able to enter Real Space, see his friends again and rejoin the rest of the social universe.

  Not that the future will be all smooth sailing. There are still an endless series of obstacles ahead, but at least she and Jax will have a chance to tackle them. Briefly, Ana indulges herself, fantasizing about what might happen if they succeed.

  She imagines Jax maturing over the years, both in Real Space and in the real world. Imagines him incorporated, a legal person, employed and earning a living. Imagines him as a participant in the digient subculture, a community with enough money and skills to port itself to new platforms when the need arises. Imagines him accepted by a generation of humans who have grown up with digients and view them as potential relationship partners in a way that members of her generation will never be able to. Imagines him loving and being loved, arguing and compromising. Imagines him making sacrifices, some hard and some made easy because they’re for a person he truly cares about.

  A few minutes pass, and Ana tells herself to stop daydreaming. There’s no guarantee that Jax is capable of any of those things. But if he’s ever going to get the chance to try them, she has to get on with the job in front of her now: teaching him, as best she can, the business of living.

  She initiates the game’s shutdown procedure and calls Jax on the intercom. “Playtime’s over, Jax,” she says. “Time to do your homework.”

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  Document ID: 3ff4729d-56de-437d-9dfd-968fc0e3e080

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  Document creation date: 24 July 2011

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