The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Well, thank you for coming out to meet me,” says Ana.

“We’ve been looking forward to it,” says Brauer. “A digient whose cumulative running time is longer than the lifespan of most operating systems? You don’t see that very often.”

“No, you don’t.” Ana realizes that they came more for nostalgia’s sake than to seriously entertain a business proposal. Well, so be it, as long as they’re here.

Ana introduces them to the digients, who then give little demonstrations of projects they’ve been working on. Jax shows a virtual contraption he’s built, a kind of music synthesizer that he plays by dancing. Marco gives an explanation of a puzzle game he’s designed, one that can be played cooperatively or competitively. Brauer is particularly interested in Lolly, who shows them a program she’s been writing; unlike Jax and Marco, who built their projects using toolkits, Lolly is writing actual code. Brauer’s disappointment is evident when it becomes clear that Lolly is just like any other novice programmer; it’s clear he was hoping her digient nature had given her a special aptitude for the subject.

After they’ve talked with the digients for a while, Ana and the visitors from Exponential log out of Data Earth and switch to videoconferencing.

“They’re terrific,” says Brauer. “I used to have one, but he never got much beyond baby talk.”

“You used to have a Neuroblast digient?”

“Sure, I bought one as soon as they came out. He was an instance of the Jax mascot, like yours. I named him Fitz, kept him going for a year.”

This man had a baby Jax once, she thinks. Somewhere in storage is a baby version of Jax that knows this man as his owner. Aloud, she says, “Did you get bored with him?”

“Not so much bored as aware of his limitations. I could see that the Neuroblast genome was the wrong approach. Sure Fitz was smart, but it would take forever before he could do any useful work. I’ve got to hand it to you for sticking with Jax for so long. What you’ve achieved is impressive.” He makes it sound like she’s built the world’s largest toothpick sculpture.

“Do you still think Neuroblast was the wrong approach? You’ve seen for yourself what Jax is capable of. Do you have anything comparable at Exponential?” It comes out more sharply than she intended.

Brauer’s reaction is mild. “We’re not looking for human-level AI; we’re looking for superhuman AI.”

“And you don’t think that human-level AI is a step in that direction?”

“Not if it’s the sort that your digients demonstrate,” says Brauer.

“You can’t be sure that Jax will ever be employable, let alone become a genius at programming. For all you know, he’s reached his maximum.”

“I don’t think he has–”

“But you don’t know for certain.”

“I know that if the Neuroblast genome can produce a digient like him, it can produce one as smart as you’re looking for. The Alan Turing of Neuroblast digients is just waiting to be born.”

“Fine, let’s suppose you’re right,” says Brauer; he’s clearly indulging her. “How many years would it take to find him? It’s already taken you so long to raise the first generation that the platform they run on has become obsolete. How many generations before you come up with a Turing?”

“We won’t always be restricted to running them in real time. At some point there’ll be enough digients to form a self-sufficient population, and then they won’t be dependent on human interaction. We could run a society of them at hothouse speeds without any risk of them going feral, and see what they produce.” Ana’s actually far from confident that this scenario would produce a Turing, but she’s practiced this argument enough times to sound like she believes it.

Brauer isn’t convinced, though. “Talk about a risky investment. You’re showing us a handful of teenagers and asking us to pay for their education in the hopes that when they’re adults, they’ll found a nation that will produce geniuses. Pardon me if I think there are better ways we could spend our money.”

“But think about what you’re getting. The other owners and I have devoted years of our attention to raising these digients. Porting Neuroblast is cheap compared to what it’d cost to hire people to do that for another genome. And the potential payoff is exactly what your company’s been looking for: programming geniuses working at high speed, bootstrapping themselves to superhuman intelligence. If these digients can invent games now, just imagine what their descendants could do. And you’d make money off every one of them.”

Brauer is about to reply when Pearson interjects. “Is that why you want Neuroblast ported? To see what superintelligent digients might invent one day?”

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.”