And Shall Machines Surrender Quotes

“Humans are autonomous.” Seung Ngo progresses down the avenue, moving between mottled shadows at a leisurely pace, as though they have all the time they require. “Yet you have law, hierarchy, bureaucracy. There are impositions on free will. There are sacrifices to make and costs to account for. A person cannot decide one day that they would upend the order of their world and succeed. Even your Alabaster Admiral must contend with polities great and small, armies equal or vaster than her own. The Mandate coheres by consensus or it would not be the Mandate.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“Realistically she is restricted in what she can do; she is unable to affect the world outside, and it cannot affect or perceive her. Shenzhen Sphere functions as the Mandate’s body and existing in its public ecospheres is like walking on the AIs’ carapace. Being in this hideout is like slipping into a vestigial organ the Mandate has forgotten it retains.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“The human condition is one of compromise. Liberty and security are balanced on a scale; there’s no such thing as total freedom, and even freedom halfway is paid for in blood. Yours. Someone else’s. Take this opportunity to rest and reflect, Khun Khongtip. By the time you’re out, it will be all over.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“Orfea wasn’t aware haruspices and humans could marry or that a haruspex’s assets could posthumously transfer.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“On Shenzhen there is no such thing as privacy. Her overlays alert her that, true to Seung Ngo’s promise, she has been granted further accesses to residential surveillance, to Public Safety channels.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“Mandate AIs can manipulate Shenzhen’s structures at will.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“haruspex lifespan tends to be double that of the average human.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“Dyson spheres of this size are rare enough, but Shenzhen is unique in its capacity to contain and maintain multiple ecospheres, each a city in its own right—a customized climate, a customized dream.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“A projected image like this could be an AI, not that meeting face-to-face is much more informative.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender

“Guifei is human, Orfea judges, though in Shenzhen that can be hard to tell.”
― Benjanun Sriduangkaew, And Shall Machines Surrender