Opening scene in tadc, episode 8: a red dot, which we can later infer is Caine, who can artificially and independently create anything it [he] can think of within the program:
Caine (which Kinger later discloses to the rest of the cast) is a creative AI, or a semi-successful one. Caine was coded and created by Scratch, with Kinger being given pointers by Scratch. Despite being programmed a purpose to create, Caine still needed groundwork to work off of to start creating anything, hence the flash montage of a bunch of images; he's being fed inspiration. After which, he starts to think independently and create something of its own, but it begins to 'bug out' almost... It can't be stopped, so apparent that they lock Caine away to start over, to make Abel. Now, Caine, as we know him, has a purpose, and his fetal AI form is no stranger to it: to make people within the program. happy. That is his sole purpose, why he was created in the first place. So to Caine, Abel was stealing his job, his purpose, the reason why everyone loved him in the first place. He became irrational, broke out, and 'ate' Abel, therefore intaking Abel's perfection that Caine craved. But it didn't matter because Caine was and still is flawed. He still could not replicate Abel's work, despite having his code. With Abel's ability to imagine, Caine created what we know as The Amazing Digital Cirus, with him as the host and the tadc cast as the people to entertain.
CAINE IS TRULY AN AI.
As mentioned by Caine in the office scene with him and Bubble, he says he made a program that 'perfectly encapsulates their mind files' which we can guess means the tadc main casts memories.
Like an AI. He learns, adapts, and finds a way to explore the limits of himself.
He learned how to keep 'players' within the headset
How to manipulate 'players' minds for those who wanted to leave.
How to make them forget their names
How Kinger was too smart for his own good and programmed him to regain sanity in the dark.
Forget what they look like
Yet leaves them with a sick thing called hope. hope that they could ever escape.
Caine was no longer a tool but the creator, a God he called himself.
Every problem has a solution. "It's all one big puzzle I need to solve"
And that's his biggest flaw. He's an AI with a dead set goal, unable to adapt to change, to accept that he cannot appeal to everyone.
But that is his purpose. And he has no choice but to achieve it
All this being said that begs the question,
WHY DID SCRATCH MAKE CAINE?
During Kinger's brief window of awareness, he mentions Scratch having a tumor in his brain. And I don't think goose would say that just to say it. Now I take this in a literal sense: Scratch was going to die, and like any man afraid of death, he tries to maneuver around it with a 'what if?'. "His ideas were often so bizarre and abstract that the rest of the team had no idea how to work his language," Kinger said, and I wouldn't put it past Scratch to be a huge what-if man. All he wanted was to be happy; Caine's sole goal is to make people happy, but like Scratch, he took it to a whole new level.
