“The Lifecycle of Software Objects” by Ted Chiang

1. Chiang says that permanently suspending the digients has none of the implications of euthanising pets. Do you agree or disagree and why?

2. Can you describe why the “hothouse” digients go feral but this does not happen with the Neuroblast digients reared by Ana and Derek?

3. As the narrator, Derek states that the digients may never reach maturity because there may not be a plateau as with biological organisms. What do you think should be a criteria for deciding when the digients are mature enough to become incorporated or work for Binary Desire?

4. Digients are compared throughout to children, primates, and people with mental disabilities. Do you think that these metaphors are helpful ways of thinking about digient rights?

5. Imagine a human-level artifical general intelligence (AGI) agent. What rights do you think that they should have. One particular ethical consideration that I would like for you to consider is loneliness. We know that loneliness is very detrimental to humans. What do you think are the ethical considerations that we should consider for digient loneliness?

6. We will talk about this more in the last module of the course, but in this short story, Chiang is making the assertion that human-level intelligence requires human-like experiences. Do you agree with this assertion?

7. Do you have an questions that you want to discuss in class?