The Lifecycle of Software Objects

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.