Oh, I would think one would come to care about a program the same way one would care about another person.

And, attachment just isn't that uncommon of a thing. We not only care about other people but about our pets, even sometimes our cars and other inanimate objects. I myself tend to name big-ticket stuff I own that is important to me/that I feel like I form a sort of "partnership" with-- namely vehicles and musical instruments (although while the violins and guitar merit a name, the pennywhistles and electric keyboard never have... not sure why) and if I ever own a firearm it will be named as well.

Really, I think the point of the films is meant to be that programs ARE just like us. I have an OC that falls for a program. In one of my fics where she's featured, she's arguing with Dillinjr, who can't believe she's involved with a program (it later comes out that he was once interested in a program but didn't think users and programs could be together... and then the program was killed in a system takeover by a hostile corrupted program, without ever knowing how he felt). He tells my OC that programs' "personalities" are just determined by their programming. She points out that our personalities are much the same-- you can *act* like whatever you want but it's unlikely that underneath, the basics of who you are will change. I can tell you that there are some views and personality quirks I've held as long as I can remember and I don't expect that to change... so it sounds like I'm bound by my "programming" as much as any program is.

She also points out to him that like programs, our bodies function on electrical impulses. And that our bodies ARE created of code-- for us, it's called DNA. All WE are, are structures of carbon and water with some other stuff thrown in. How is that any more significant than 1s and 0s? We're made of the same matter as rocks and clouds and nebulae... what makes us more important or more significant than those things? If it's sentience, well, then, the programs...


Now, as to whether we SHOULD care about programs... well, we've had the discussion about whose lives are worth more and such, and there's no easy answer. Anthropomorphize them too much, and you'll never again delete a program or leave it running too long or tax it in any way... and pretty soon you'll be sitting on a nonfunctional system you maintain just to keep the programs happy.

Kat Wrote: and pretty soon you'll be sitting on a nonfunctional system you maintain just to keep the programs happy.

Thing is, the programs on Flynns server are not so much programs as they are extremely advanced AI the programs in the less advanced encom server did not care aout being derezzed as long as it pleased the users.

They also had little to no personality and only cared about the jobs their users gave them , so it will be more dificult to care about those programs than to care about the programs on Flynn's new server.

Honestly, I would, but part of that is having a character in my head who adamantly refuses to see the Programs as anything less (or even much different) than human. It's probably to his detriment, and might cause issues later, but for now? It's why he can even be a hero at all.

You see the Program. He looks human, he acts human. He tells jokes, he worries about his loved ones, he sometimes complains about his job. If there is a difference, it's not overtly visible and may not even be relevant. He's coded up in Gibbs 4 and you're coded up in amino acids.

It's only as I start writing that the threads get pulled. Restore a Program from backup? Well, I take the 2.0 route. Remember Mercury getting restored? She was disturbingly machine-like until her settings were fixed. They're probably "robotic" until they get any life experience back - kinda like Star Wars droids. The longer they go without a wipe, the more independent they get. So you could restore a dead Program from backup in theory, but in practice, it's more like a clone - the memories and eventual personality could be vastly different (we saw this with the Clus - 1.0? Good guy. Version 2.0? Bad news). The time dilation also makes it bad - a day in your world is 50 of theirs. And the lifespan; first-world humans get about 80 years. A Program lives for maybe 5.