[betageek]

Ted Chiang wrote an interesting novella, The Lifecycle of Software Objects, about that very subject

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lifecycle_of_Software_Obje...

[sampo]

Another one is Crystal Nights by Greg Egan. Full text here:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090604111226/http://ttapress.c...

[marcus_holmes]

Or Iain Banks' take on the subject, in Surface Detail(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Detail)

edit: wrong book ;)