"I am Waltz" creates a world where robots, it seems, are given awareness and feelings, are provided a sense of self, but have no free will. They are required to fully submit to humans in all things, including the timing and circumstance of their “death.” Kyle, a human kid who has grown up in this world – indeed in the worst representation of this world: the junkyard where these sentient beings are flayed alive before their minds are erased (truly a creepy juxtaposition of occurrences) – has presumably never considered the ethical or moral propositions of it, because no one around him does. It is just the way it is. Until it isn’t.
The premise here poses a compelling question: how artificial is artificial intelligence, and how willing would we be as a species to overlook those not-so-artificial parts? The things that aren’t so much technological as anthropological? I look forward to reading more. This, I think, is gonna be good.