The Lifecycle of Software Objects

[Dan]

For December 2024 we are reading this novella as a complement to the two poll winners for short story and novelette. This novella won the 2011 Hugo and 2011 Locus awards for best novella and was a Nebula award nominee. Originally published in 2010, American writer Ted Chiang's more than 30,000-word novella, his longest piece of writing up to that point, focuses on the creation of digital entities and their growth as they are raised by human trainers over the course of many years. The emotion is tamped down in this novella, but ethical questions are raised. This is quintessential hard SF.

If there is a way to buy this story alone for less than $10, please post it quickly and tell all your fellow group members about it. The most convenient way I could find was to purchase Ted Chiang's story collection Exhalation, which contains this story and eight other Chiang stories along with a closing essay. It's $9.99 though, quite an investment I acknowledge. Make sure you enjoy hard SF before taking that plunge is my advice. I do. On occasion.

This is the topic to which you can post your impressions. Happy, challenging reading!

[Dan]

I ordered the story collection Exhalation from the used book market for the most reasonable price. It arrived today. I dropped another book I am in the middle of in order to read "Lifecycle of Software Objects." I must admit, one third through this longish novella, I am amazed.

We are mostly getting the story through Ana Alvarado's eyes. She is a student of Robyn's who brought Ana into (as an employee) a company named Blue Gamma, which creates digients, artificial intelligence entities that are like pets at first, but smarter, who start to develop beyond their creators' intentions. The way this happens is subtle and very realistically portrayed as stemming from good motivations, mainly wanting attention from humans as any good pet or child does. But humans have only so much attention to bestow....

This collection (2019) is Ted Chiang's second. The first was the also well-received Stories of Your Life and Others. Exhalation consists of nine stories, all under 50 pages in length, except for this beast, 111 pages. I highly recommend it for hard sf readers who enjoy explorations of what it means for AI creations to become sentient, for thoughtful analyses of how it could happen in a real world of flawed, narcissistic, self-concerned humanity, and the ethical implications that result. It's deep!

[Dan]

I finished this very impressive story and suspect I may be the only one in the group to do so. Anyway, my review is here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Kevan]

Nice review Dan. I have read Exhalation previously, one of my favourite sci-fi books so far.

I enjoyed Lifecycle of Software Objects, was a sad story if I recall correctly, and was interesting to see the perspective of AI as helpless beings completely at the mercy of humans, unlike more conventional AI stories which go the opposite direction.

Coincidentally I've started watching the Westworld TV series which is another story of AI's gaining consciousness. It's a slow burn mind bender, so might be of interest to some in this group.

I think I liked every story in the Exhalation collection, but some that stood out for me were the title story Exhalation, great surprise once you realise what it's about, What's Expected of Us, interesting story about free will, and The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate a time travel tale set in the past.

[Dan]

Thanks for letting me know there are other good stories in that book, Kevan. I'll try to get to them too some time. I had not truly realized how helpless the digients were portrayed as. I guess that's because I don't view the laptop upon which I am typing this as helpless, though it has no choice but to let me hit its keys. I have never viewed any human creation as helpless, I suppose.