Bronwyn McVeigh
Professor Harper
Emily Balch Seminar
Dec. 6, 2022
The Lifecycle of Software Objects and the Commodification of Posthuman Subjects
In Ted Chiang’s short story, “The Lifecycle of Software Objects,” virtual reality has become much closer to replicating real life, with people owning homes and going to work entirely in a digital space. This story details the lives of digients, conscious digital beings, as the online world continues to advance past them. Originally, they are revolutionary technology, but as consumers begin to become disinterested, their founding company shuts down and their digital world switches to a separate platform that the digients cannot be uploaded to. Their owners, mainly Ana and Derek, knowing that the digients are fully conscious, start to become desperate to reintegrate them into their world but in order to do so they must negotiate with people who see the digients as objects only capable of doing a singular task and are not willing to buy in because of their complexity. As the digients are continually reduced to commodities, they show signs of trauma, but also genuine insight and comprehension that challenges the alleged superiority of the human brain and the developers’ ideas of the digients cognitive ability. Taking Ida Marie Olsen’s argument about the ability of the posthuman to experience trauma and Katherine Hayles’ theory on information losing its body into the context of the digients in Ted Chiang’s short story, the destabilization of the human through the introduction of conscious, non-human beings is difficult to ignore, but through this destabilization, the opportunity for commodification arises, cultivated by fear.
The existence of the digients and their level of consciousness itself proves the shift from purely embodied information to digital information. Katherine Hayles argues that “the posthuman view thinks of the body as the original prosthesis we all learn to manipulate, so that extending or replacing the body with other prostheses becomes a continuation of a process that began before we were born. Fourth, and most important, by these and other means, the posthuman view configures human being so that it can be seamlessly articulated with intelligent machines.” (Hayles 3) The idea of the human body as the original prosthesis, with consciousness being separate, but in control is heavily supported by the digients. They live primarily in an entirely digital form but are still controlled by an entirely “human” consciousness-learning, interacting, and evolving in an identical way to human children. Along with the theory of the body as a prosthesis, the digients are capable of uploading their consciousnesses into a robot body and interact with the physical world. Jax, one of the digients, goes into the robot and after seeing Ana, asks her why she’s wearing a different avatar. Ana responds with, “And people don't switch their bodies here; we can only do that in Data Earth. Here we always wear the same body.” (Chiang 24) The digients have no concept of embodiment, which aligns with Hayles’ idea that the embodiment of information is a western anthropocentric viewpoint. Despite this, the western mindset is incredibly prevalent and widely accepted by the world, leading people to doubt the true consciousness of the digients.
As the digients are conscious, they react to stressors in the same way humans do, especially in response to traumatic or world-ending events. Many people in the story doubt the digients ability to understand or experience the effects of what is occurring around them, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence and continue to inflict harm upon them, whether it be physical, emotional, or in the form of neglect. Ida Marie Olsen writes, “An idea that may be considered is that instead of technology causing human trauma, we are now the ones who traumatize technology. What if technology, in the form of computers and robots, has evolved to the point where it possesses the ability to become traumatized? This trajectory of thought is one that ought to be considered in an attempt to debunk anthropocentrism and to investigate and broaden the categories of ‘trauma’, ‘human’, and ‘posthuman’” (Olsen 102) Applying this argument to Chiang’s story helps us to empathize with the digients and understand that despite their lack of “humanity,” they are still entirely capable of incurring lasting trauma from their experiences. One example that clearly shows an impact from a traumatic event occurs when the digients are shown footage of a human avatar beating a digient after their television is hacked. Chiang writes, “She can see that they’re agitated and confused. They don’t have the fight-or-flight response that animals have, nor do they have any reactions triggered by smelling pheromones or hearing distress calls, but they do have an analog of mirror neurons. It helps them learn and socialize, but it also means they’re distressed by what they saw on the television.” (Chiang 55) Despite their lack of animalistic reactions to the violent display, they are programmed to understand what is presented to them, and they can clearly see one of their own in immense pain and react accordingly. This observation is supported by Olsen’s argument that “Trauma therefore revolves mainly around the individual’s inability to comprehend, or process, the traumatizing event. This might have some interesting implications in light of artificial intelligence, which, like the human mind, would be engaged in an act of processing.” (Olsen 104) As stated before, the digients are created with the ability to process their surroundings and are very capable of comprehending events that they could perceive as harmful. This is also described in Jax’s response to being isolated on the private server, unable to interact with other digients or humans in the newer platform. He becomes agitated, restless, and depressed as more time goes on, even telling Ana that he wants to be suspended until he is compatible with the new world. He displays a clear understanding of his circumstances and processes the possible future outcomes, acting in a way indistinguishable from a human trauma response.
The denial of the digients intelligence and ability to experience trauma is present throughout the story along with the general consensus that they are not real in any way, just pixels with programmed responses. As we see in the story, the digients are much more than that and are capable of learning, feeling, and adapting-just as people can. Ignoring the reality of the situation, the framing of the digients in this light is done with a purpose. If their abilities are ignored, they are much easier to market to the general consumer base. The digients are truly virtual children, needing anything a human child would need-discipline, care, guidance, quality time-in order to function at their full capacity. They are originally sold as new wave Tamagotchis that can interact at a much higher level, but still lack a consciousness that could make you feel guilty if you were to accidentally forget about them for a few days. As the story progresses, the specific brand of digients that the story focuses on are no longer created or sold by their developers, so the idea of their unconsciousness becomes irrelevant but, since they are no longer compatible with the virtual reality platforms, they need money to update their software. The first few jobs that the digients apply to do reject them, not because they are incompetent, but because they operate on a level that is not useful in the commodity chain. The ideal digient worker, in the eyes of those seeking to hire them, is only competent at a single task and is incapable of much else. This mindset mirrors the introduction of unspecialized labor in developed countries, where workers with high levels of education or jobs that require them are no longer seen as efficient in a world defined by the speed at which commodities can be produced and sold. With the existence of digients in this story, a new frontier of exploitation is presented. Though the digients, as proven before, are entirely conscious beings, there is no real way to prove it other than first-hand experience with an open mind. This makes it incredibly easy for them to be framed as unfeeling and unaware beings with a high level of programmed intelligence, perfect to be used as replacements for humans in unsavory jobs with no risk of workers rights groups attacking them. Even if the digients were to stand up for themselves, the public would never collectively take the word of AI over the word of a human, whether that be because of ignorance or fear.
The posthuman experiences that we see in “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” disrupt the boundaries we have set between human and non-human through the description of trauma in the digients and with the display of information outside of the human mind.