You're definitely right that the two stories can't be compared one-to-one. Shai has very little agency because of her circumstances, and she never would have attempted to do something so insane on her own initiative. But what bothers me is that the narrative focuses much more on how she's creating a great work of art than examining moral questions it implicitly raises. She questions how much she should change him (which is constrained by the practical limitation that the fake soul won't work if she changes it too much), but the question of whether or not it's moral to create a fake soul at all is barely addressed--only the self-righteous members of the oppressive regime really feel that way, and they hypocritically ignore their moral compunctions in favor of political convenience.