Page - 165 - in Limina - Grazer theologische Perspektiven, Volume 3:2

165 | www.limina-graz.eu Frank G. Bosman | The turning of Turing’s tables (the Holistic Integration Manager runs on server 0 of the Extended Life- span supercomputer), the manager tries to trick the child program and all its later iterations and versions to “obey,” that is, into failing the inde- pendence check, thus starting a new version of the child program all over again, assuring the manager’s continuous existence. Alexandra Drennen, head developer of the Talos project, felt very strongly that the perfect A.I. had to be more than a “problem-solver”: “Intelligence is more than just problem-solving. Intelligence is questioning the assump- tion you’re presented with. Intelligence is the ability to question existing thought-constructs. If we don’t make that part of the simulation, all we’ll create is a really effective slave” (“Time Capsule #14”). And apparently, the developers of the Talos project thought the independence check to be the answer to ensuring that the A.I. would be more than a problem-solver or a “slave” obedient to its programming “masters”. If the player chooses – the first or another time – to disobey EL0HIM and ascend into the “Tower”, another, probably canonical, ending can be reached (“Disobedience Ending”). When reaching the top of the Tower, the same golden gates on the cloud can be found. When “/ascend” is typed into the console, a couple of things happen. Firstly, the lines indicate that the child program independence check has been “PASSED!”. Secondly, EL0HIM acknowledges its defeat: “You were always meant to defy me. That was the final trial. But I was … scared. I wanted to live forever.” And in a reference to the Hebrew amen and the famous words of the Lord’s Prayer (Gospel of Matthew 6:9–13 and the Gospel of Luke 11:2–4): “So be it. May your will be done.” Thirdly, the now deemed successful child program will be downloaded into a physical robotic body, booted, and allowed to step outside the facility housing the Extended Lifespan, looking out over a green but absolutely desolate world. In the meantime, EL0HIM’s server is delet- ed, destroying the “Worlds” and the Integration Manager with it. Disobedience as a virtue According to game writer Jonas Kyratzes, the game was, from its first pitch, a “humanist retelling of the Garden of Eden story” (Zucchi 2015). While in Christian tradition the eating of the forbidden fruit (Genesis 3) is consid- ered to have been a grave sin (Greenblatt 2017), The Talos Principle begs to “You were always meant to defy me. That was the final trial.”