Page - 162 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 3:2

162 | www.limina-graz.eu Frank G. Bosman | The turning of Turing’s tables What is commonly thought of as human creativity could not only possibly (or not) be emulated by an A.I. through randomly trying all possible solu- tions until an optimal one (or the most optimal one) is found, but also be, a priori, what we call “creativity”. Are humans not also randomly trying all possible solutions, either virtual or in reality, until an optimal outcome is found, something more commonly known as “experimenting”? The same applies to morality. Is it possible that what we call “morality” is, in fact, nothing more than a certain kind of logic? I am not so much interested in finding the answer to the questions “is hu- man morality nothing more than logic?” or “is human creativity nothing more than constrained chaos?”, but rather in stipulating that these kinds of questions are imposed on the gamer by applying the Turing test to the player him- or herself. When the player has to solve the puzzles, what is it that enables him or her to find the right answer? And this also applies when the player has to decide whether to allow the crew to return home, “kill- ing” TOM and possibly exposing all humanity to an unknown organism with uncertain characteristics, or to kill two human beings, imprisoning the crew for eternity on Europa, and robbing humankind of a possible cure for almost every conceivable disease and even death. In The Turing Test game, the test is narratively used as, and altered into, a virtual thought experiment, in order to involve the player in the test, stim- ulating the same player to contemplate the constituents of being human. To test a god: the game The Talos Principle If morality, creativity and even language are problematized as being exclu- sively human traits, which, if any, then constitute the uniqueness of being human? The game The Talos Principle suggests a rather innovative idea to pinpoint the quintessence of being human: the ability to disobey, or in the context of artificial intelligence, the ability to proceed beyond the limits of its programming. The Talos Principle is, essentially, a physical puzzle game, just like The Tu- ring Test. The player has to manipulate the physical environment in order to proceed to the end of a specific level. In between the levels, the player, by means of his or her avatar, can interact with other entities within the game, What constitutes the uniqueness of being human?