Reddit mentions of The Peripheral (The Jackpot Trilogy)

The Peripheral by William Gibson.

The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North.

Wool by Hugh Howey.

The City and the City by China Mieville.

The hand-wave explanation is that with enough people and resources in the future, people (even non-human persons) are likely to do just about anything that's possible. We may not be able to understand their motivations from our current perspective.

A more concrete suggestion - why do we have archaeologists and historians today?

An alternative suggestion - the simulation could be closer to a universe simulator (so they could see into the past of cosmology or see how universes played out with different constants) and any consciousness that arises may be completely accidental.

I don't want to spoil anything for you... and my interpretation of the book isn't the mainstream, but you may find The Peripheral by William Gibson interesting.

I know this post is 2 days old, which puts it in some sort of reddit graveyard, but I'll add my thoughts.

First, Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan is the definitive "modern" cyberpunk novel so check that out for sure.

Also, for more of a "5 minutes into the future" cyberpunk, check out the Nexus trilogy by Ramez Naam. The third book in the trilogy won the Philip K. Dick Award if that means anything to you.

Another series I liked, which has a great dark humor to it, is the Avery Cates series by Jeff Somers. Seriously, just read the 'About the Author' section at the bottom of that page to get an idea of the humor.

Have you read William Gibson's The Peripheral? It's a neat update on Gibson's cyberpunk vision now that the world has changed.

Someone else recommended Cory Doctorow. I actually think Little Brother is his best work, though it's young adult so prepare yourself for that.

Finally, I feel weird recommending this, but if you were a child of the 80s, have you read Ready Player One? It's pretty polarizing in this sub since you either love it or you hate it, but it is a popular modern cyberpunk novel.

• not utopian - is a sort of spirit of determinism to make them so.
  
  '15
  
  1800 3.9 https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/20821159-the-peripheral
  
  800 4.2 https://www.amazon.com/Peripheral-William-Gibson/dp/0425276236
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Peripheral