Been meaning to write you about Neuromancer, I finished it some time ago. I did not really get into it until about page 100, and after that I read the rest of in two sittings. It was the first book-length science fiction I have ever read, unless you count Jules Verne or some Kurt Vonnegut titles. I was surprised how dismal a world it depicts, all that technology, but mostly applied in the furtherance of hustling, self-defense, crime and dynastic power-maintenance. The AIs seemed more congenially motivated than many of the people. Poor Case reminded me of a guy from Sartre or from some of Hemingways gloomier stories, lucky to just survive but not so consistently lucky in keeping some dignity, despite trying.
Given that I came to the book from a different world than you did, it is probably unlikely that I would react similarly to you, but the book did sort of influence me when I was writing the latest functional description of Project PM--you will notice the new description expects the network to do a lot more, and does not attempt to define it down to a few little pass-around transactions as my pre-Neuromancer description did. So yeah, you can create a program and eventually turn loose of it, and let it continue on its own (to do good things--hopefully), so the program becomes more real, than us.
Let me know when you are putting any new pieces online anywhere: I miss reading your stuff.