kimberly_christensen 's review for:

The Lifecycle of Software Objects by Ted Chiang

3.0

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I loved the premise of this book, in which online avatars are used to explore learning and artificial intelligence, and in which their human trainers bond and even come to love these created creatures. However, readers are kept at an arm's length throughout the story, when it would have been easy to have the readers also fall in love with the digients and to care about their fate when their platform is discontinued. Additionally, the book ends very abruptly, with every major storyline unresolved. Read it if you're interested in exploring the intersection of online characters and machine learning, but if unresolved will put knots in your britches, then avoid.