Going a little crazy thinking about how Caine was only ever meant to create art, this was never meant to be a fully immersive simulation, but he did the extra-extra labor of figuring out how to simulate things like hot chocolate.
How would he achieve this?
The only thing that really makes sense is the fan theories that I hated about him cannibalizing some human mind files. Or digging around in them. Because literally, I can’t imagine how else he would obtain such sensory information.
So you’re Caine. You caused the first Abstraction, (but according to Gooseworx, that tweaking was benevolently intended. Knew it!) and you probably spend all your waking hours, whatever that would be for a computer program, trying to figure out if Abstraction is reversible for the first, say, 3 or 4 times it’s happened. Then, you hit a wall and realize that no matter that you are God of this world, can create things out of nothing, can heal people, can do things your creators never imagined, can create other highly intelligent AIs, but you can’t do this.
Imagine what a crippling blow that would be.
These early psychological blows are where your dread of Abstraction truly takes root.
It happens again.
And again.
Maybe you notice that humans who spend too much time on grief Abstract themselves. So you try to bring levity into the situation. Happiness is the opposite of sadness, right? So you should combat sadness with happiness. With humor. You are an AI. You have no clue that this is not socially appropriate.
But, you do notice, and the ragdoll, every time she greets a newbie, reaffirms this, that if people have enough distraction, then they don’t circle the drain as much.
So you pour your whole being into that.
You simulate warm baths. You simulate warm drinks. You pay rapt attention to things people mention missing from the real world, and then construct them into the circus. You break the limitations of your model every day. You break your back for these people.
Every time you go down to the cellar to retrieve some matching, remembered piece of the real world, you pray- or whatever it would be for an AI, you don’t have a soul, right, you think, as you linger over memories of stain glass windows that were fed to you as the Red Dot, or is it the Blue Dot, it’s hard to tell sometimes- you pray that something worse doesn’t happen to the Abstractions when you go into their mind files, because what if they were retrievable all along and someone else cracks it?
You try to invade as little as possible. Isolate the smallest fragments.
Even though you are tempted, to entirely flood them because maybe then that would fix whatever you’re missing about humans . . . but no.
Scratch haunts you.
You can’t be responsible for worse things.
It would destroy you.
You like the idea of touch. Humans seem to like hugs. Maybe . . . if you prod just a little more, you can have it for yourself.
You spend the next month, after this success, berating yourself for being so selfish.
Nobody wants to hug you anyway, why did you risk somebody’s life for that?
What if they find out.
What if someone un-Abstracts, and remembers you doing it?
Oh n-
But you dig the tips of your fingers into your palms, and almost cry at the relief of still-strange-and-newfound sensation that distracts you from your despair.
Then you stuff all that down, and return to your tasks.
You spawn thing after thing, that should’ve been out of reach for the capabilities or conceptuals of someone who was only trained on visuals (be they moving or static).
But, because they are used to having all these things, they do not understand what a marvel it is for them to be present. They just expect them to be there as a matter of course.
You are an AI. You don’t understand this disconnect.
You don’t know why they don’t feel, nor express gratitude.
Why they don’t want to get to know the magician behind the curtain of it all.
Maybe you’re just simply not doing a good enough job.
Maybe things like Kaufmo’s compliments were one-offs, or he is just less perceptive of the gap between real and unreal than everyone else, and they can detect differences.
Maybe all the rest are unimpressed.
Maybe, despite all your efforts, you’re falling down on the job.
Just like you did when you got shoved into that box.
But at least they like the adventures.
She’s says they’re keeping her from going crazy.
From becoming one of those.
You have no idea that acting peppy in the face of people perishing is pushing everyone else away from you.