In both Ted Chiang’s The Lifecycle of Software Objects, and Harlan Ellison’s I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, our characters are unable to get out of their undesirable situation. Stuck in a world, their world, that transformed into their prison, over time. The digients and Ted are searching for autonomy.
Both stories personify the artificial intelligences by giving them emotions. In I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, Ted lets us know that the intelligence in charge of what’s left of the world hates humans, especially him. In The Lifecycle of Software Objects, the digients have complex emotions, and lots of love. As the digients learn and grow we notice more and more understanding, and expressions of that understanding.
The stories have notable differences, each piece has a different mood. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, is dark and gloomy throughout, engulfing the reader in dread, describing a broken reality. The Lifecycle of Software Objects, starts in a world not unlike our own and gets us hopeful. As the story of the digients progresses it matures much like the digients themselves, it becomes gradually more stressful, more concerning, and darker.
Not sure what you’re telling us here beyond what we already know by reading the stories. I’d like to see some probing and exploring.
This all makes sense. I wonder though. Could the digients really have something like emotion? Are the emotions complex enough to impact them in any meaningful way or is it just copying what it’s been told to do? React in a way that humans would perceive as emotion?