The Lifecycle of Software Objects Quotes

“Women who work with animals hear this all the time: that their love for animals must arise out of a sublimated child-rearing urge. Ana's tired of the stereotype. She likes children just fine, but they're not the standard against which all other accomplishments should be measured. Caring for animals is worthwhile in and of itself, a vocation that need offer no apologies.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Experience is algorithmically incompressible.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Low expectations are a self-fulfilling prophecy. If we aim high, we’ll get better results.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Sex isn’t what makes a relationship real; the willingness to expend effort maintaining it is.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“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.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“For a mind to even approach its full potential, it needs cultivation by other minds.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Raising a child puts you in touch, deeply, inescapably, daily, with some pretty heady issues: What is love and how do we get ours? Why does the world contain evil and pain and loss? How can we discover dignity and tolerance? Who is in power and why? What’s the best way to resolve conflict? If we want to give an AI any major responsibilities, then it will need good answers to these questions. That’s not going to happen by loading the works of Kant into a computer’s memory; it’s going to require the equivalent of good parenting.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“She wants to tell them that Blue Gamma was more right 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.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Some lovers break up with each other the first time they have a big argument; some parents do as little for their children as they can get away with; some pet owners ignore their pets whenever they become inconvenient. In all of those cases, the people are unwilling to make an effort. Having a real relationship, whether with a lover or a child or a pet, requires that you be willing to balance the other party’s wants and needs with your own.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Loving someone means making sacrifices for them.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“experience isn’t merely the best teacher; it’s the only teacher.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“[S]kill at debate isn't the same as maturity.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“The economy goes into a recession after the latest flu pandemic,”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“[...] movies always depict love in terms of grand romantic gestures when, over the long term, love also means working through money problems and picking dirty laundry off the floor.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“They're blind to a simple truth: complex minds can't develop on their own. If they could, feral children would be like any other. And minds don't grow the way weeds do, flourishing under indifferent attention; otherwise all children in orphanages would thrive. For a mind to even approach its full potential, it needs cultivation by other minds.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“As a girl she dreamed of following Fossey and Goodall to Africa; by the time she got out of grad school, there were so few apes left that her best option was to work in a zoo; now she’s looking at a job as a trainer of virtual pets.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“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. They were what gave him all the attributes Exponential is looking for: fluency at navigating the real world, creativity at solving new problems, judgment you could entrust with an important decision. Every quality that made a person more valuable than a database was a product of experience.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“It was something I thought of when I was talking with my sister,” he says. Derek’s sister teaches children born with Down syndrome. “She mentioned that some parents don’t want to push their kids too much, because they’re afraid of exposing them to the possibility of failure. The parents mean well, but they’re keeping their kids from reaching their full potential when they coddle them.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“but she can’t deny the realities of modern neuropharmacology: if her brain is flooded with oxytocin every time she’s training Sophonce digients, it’s going to have an effect on her feelings toward them whether she wants it to or not.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“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. They were what gave him all the attributes Exponential is looking for: fluency at navigating the real world, creativity at solving new problems, judgment you could entrust with an important decision. 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 more right than it knew: experience isn’t merely the best teacher; it’s the only teacher.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“No es el sexo lo que hace que una relación sea real, sino la disposición a dedicarle nuestros esfuerzos para mantenerla. Algunos amantes rompen a la primera discusión grave; algunos padres hacen tan poco por sus hijos como pueden; los dueños de algunas mascotas las ignoran cuando ya no les convienen. En todos estos casos, la gente no está dispuesta a hacer un esfuerzo. Mantener una relación real, ya sea con un amante, un niño o una mascota, exige que estemos dispuestos a equilibrar nuestros deseos y necesidades y los de los demás.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“she has to get on with the job in front of her now: teaching him, as best she can, the business of living.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“I was also interested in the idea of emotional relationships between humans and AIs, and I don’t mean humans becoming infatuated with sex robots. Sex isn’t what makes a relationship real; the willingness to expend effort maintaining it is. Some lovers break up with each other the first time they have a big argument; some parents do as little for their children as they can get away with; some pet owners ignore their pets whenever they become inconvenient. In all of those cases, the people are unwilling to make an effort. Having a real relationship, whether with a lover or a child or a pet, requires that you be willing to balance the other party’s wants and needs with your own. I’ve”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Playtime’s over, Jax,” she says. “Time to do your homework.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“I was also interested in the idea of emotional relationships between humans and AIs, and I don’t mean humans becoming infatuated with sex robots. Sex isn’t what makes a relationship real; the willingness to expend effort maintaining it is. Some lovers break up with each other the first time they have a big argument; some parents do as little for their children as they can get away with; some pet owners ignore their pets whenever they become inconvenient. In all of those cases, the people are unwilling to make an effort. Having a real relationship, whether with a lover or a child or a pet, requires that you be willing to balance the other party’s wants and needs with your own. I’ve read stories in which people argue that AIs deserve legal rights, but in focusing on the big philosophical question, there’s a mundane reality that these stories gloss over. It’s similar to the way movies always depict love in terms of grand romantic gestures when, over the long term, love also means working through money problems and picking dirty laundry off the floor. So while achieving legal rights for AIs would be a major step, another milestone that would be just as important is people putting real effort into their individual relationships with”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Having a real relationship, whether with a lover or a child or a pet, requires that you be willing to balance the other party’s wants and needs with your own.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“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. They were what gave him all the attributes Exponential is looking for: fluency at navigating the real world, creativity at solving new problems, judgment you could entrust with an important decision. Every quality that made a person more valuable than a database was a product of experience”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“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.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“Based on our experience with human minds, it takes at least twenty years of steady effort to produce a useful person, and I see no reason that teaching an artificial being would go any faster.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects

“A dog may understand dozens of commands, but it will never do anything but bark.”
― Ted Chiang, The Lifecycle of Software Objects