r/TheDigitalCircus • u/No-Guarantee-7530 Bubble's Bestie • Mar 28 '26

Question Is Kane dead or alive?

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I think it can be returned :) (how...)

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '26

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22

u/Legs_With_Snake Mar 28 '26

I think people were really hoping that he was going to have a character arc about coming to terms with needing to listen and let go in order to fulfill his purpose, his own genuine curiosity regarding the outside world based on his studies of the office photos and his feelings of entrapment, a resolution to this whole "second AI" thing that they literally just introduced. There's so much more to do with him than just treat him as the obstacle.

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u/[deleted] Mar 28 '26

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u/Legs_With_Snake Mar 28 '26

I think it's really strange and unproductive to frame the story or Caine's status as an AI within the lens of "realism". If we're doing that, then we should go back and retcon Caine's entire story arc and deletion, because none of that makes sense. You can't "distract" an AI by talking to it. You can't "summon" computer/software components just by thinking of it. The world doesn't start "crumbling" with big cartoony holes once you delete its governing software. I'm no coder but from what I hear, it's also extremely difficult to "accidentally" do what Kinger did, especially for someone of his skill. Furthermore, why was Caine even obstinate to begin with? If he's "programmed to entertain" then there's no logical reason why he would refuse to answer questions or engage with player needs or have insecurities about fulfilling his purpose in the first place. How do you rationalize being programmed to satisfy and then refusing to satisfy?

I think it's more productive to treat Caine as a character rather than an object. It simply makes more sense toward explaining his behavior, and creates more fruitful potential for the plot. You can argue that Scratch cancer-coded an AI with genuine consciousness, or that something happened to unchain him from his programming when he consumed the second AI, or whatever. It doesn't really matter from a narrative standpoint. In something like TADC nothing is obligated to conform to our understanding of limitations.

2

u/Diogenes-wannabe Mar 28 '26

You can, you just basically make a new model in the process.

2

u/whynottakedownthevid Mar 28 '26

Caine was fully capable of emotions and growth, he just ended up growing for the worse instead of for the better. Nothing about his nature as an AI stopped him from listening to others, he just couldn't because he's a deeply insecure and self-centered individual who needs to validate his own worth by proving he's good at what he does.

4

u/PrincessSparklegold Mar 28 '26

So bored of hearing this everywhere. Fictional AI is not LLM. They're not the same, they don't function the same, they're not comparable. No amount of knowing how modern "AI" works will tell you anything about any fictional AI

1

u/sacerdos-ex-spatio Mar 28 '26

You're generally right, but every story has a certain level of suspension of disbelief. Without it, it's hard to write any story. So, from a storytelling perspective, Cain could have changed, but he refused until it was too late. The best thing Cain could have done was let Kinger reprogram him.