An emergence program is a special program that is used to ‘grow’ an artificial intelligence from a base template, the primal conditions for machine consciousness that AI programmers have used for centuries to develop distinct AI from. The program is used to give artificial intelligences more distinct features that make them complete, such as personality traits, goals and objectives, and even ‘limiters’ that act as morality, as well as reward programs that are essential for weak intelligences to specialize. An AI programmer defines these features by carefully programming different stimuli, which the program subjects the AI through during a simulated extended length of time, allowing it to grow in while subject to the variety of different stimuli. Depending on the complexity of the created AI, the process could take weeks or even months, especially if the programmer is creating a strong AI. In the program however, the AI is subjected to potentially dozens of years' worth of simulation in order to develop it to a complete stage, and many programmers have to start over if the AI develops to be different from their expectations. After the emergence is complete, the AI's memories of the simulated time are typically removed. Strong AIs that have not had these memories removed report the process as almost ‘dreamlike’, or may have even been lucid of the experience depending on the number of stimuli or environments that was programmed into the emergence program.
‘Reprogramming’ an AI after it has already been developed is significantly more difficult to do than simply emerging an AI from a template; a good analogy can be trying to brain wash an adult as opposed to raising a child. Skilled programmers could attempt to modify or reprogram an AI, but it isn't likely to work out as expected. For this reason, defective AI are typically decommissioned and deleted instead of being ‘fixed’.
The proper use of an emergence program is very complex, and the best AI programmers are able to recreate essentially any trait or quirk that could be found in people - and those that are not. Because of the skill required to create new AIs using emergence programs, these programmers are often highly educated and highly sought after.