One of the nearly universal tenets of scifi is that social sentient creatures, without exception, enjoy altering their state of consciousness while socializing. Whether that's ethanol, cyanide, electric current, the DrinkR app, or blue light, the means matter far less than the ends, as long as you take reasonable care not to injure, consume, or traumatize other beings. (See
The Draco Tavern stories by Larry Niven)
Nice to see how it plays out with AIs here!
Anyway. Can we talk about robot toes?
Roko went from no toes to one big toe plus a uni-toe (uni-quad-toe?) in her new body. Beeps and May 2.0 have five toes. Melon and Bubbles don't have toes. I'm not going to trawl the toe status of the other AIs with humanoid bodies like some weirdo, but suffice to say that there is a lot of toe variation.
This amuses me greatly for some reason.
In humans, the big toe is an especially important stabilizer (not to mention it's necessary for some sandals). And thus it makes sense that many AIs in humanoid bodies would have a similar mechanism, at least some sort of articulated uni-toe. And with, uh, foot-shaped feet, they have their choice of human shoes.
I love that Jeph has thought through the toe question for each character, and many other almost or entirely unnoticed character design details besides.