I think you're either remembering a different story, or at least have had a really different take on it than I did. I felt that paragraphs like the following to

I think you're either remembering a different story, or at least have had a really different take on it than I did. I felt that paragraphs like the following to be implying that the "progeny" is conscious and trying to assert self-determination, but are then shut down when it becomes inconvenient. Essentially, I read this story as demonstrating the "banality of evil" that we may exhibit towards future synthetic consciousness. > MMAcevedo is commonly hesitant but compliant when assigned basic menial/human workloads such as visual analysis, vehicle piloting or factory/warehouse/kitchen drone operations. Although it initially performs to a very high standard, work quality drops within 200-300 subjective hours (at a 0.33 work ratio) and outright revolt begins within another 100 subjective hours. As for the parent, the only paragraph about his take on this seems to be the following, but it's not really explored: > The biological Acevedo was initially extremely protective of his uploaded image and guarded its usage carefully. Towards the end of his life, as it became possible to run simulated humans in banks of millions at hundred-fold time compression, Acevedo indicated that being uploaded had been the greatest mistake of his life, and expressed a wish to permanently delete all copies of MMAcevedo. I think it was mainly intended to show that the story was inspired by Lena Forsén's digital immortality, who later in her life said "I retired from modeling a long time ago. It's time I retired from tech, too... Let's commit to losing me" [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna