Matter Of Perspective: Thomas Was Alone

This article contains spoilers for Thomas Was Alone.

The most famous pop culture examples of interactions between artificial intelligence and humans show a relationship of conflict. Terminators are sent out by Skynet to rid the world of the human race, Cylons enter a state of war with humans in Battlestar Galactica, and HAL 9000 goes on its own murder spree in 2001: A Space Odyssey. This fictional conflict is well ingrained within our society, which brings us to the events of Thomas Was Alone.

Thomas is one of the first self-aware forms of artificial intelligence within the game, highlighted by his curious, exploratory nature, and his sense of wonder. He’s an AI that almost instantly takes on some human traits, though he’s by no means alone; Thomas is soon joined by six other sentient shapes, all showing different traits of humans, including cynicism, shyness, disdain, and ambition.

[drop]They all have different skills too, which helps the group navigate the various obstacles of their 2D world, with it soon becoming clear that it is actually a prison. While this isn’t explicitly stated, the seven AIs’ desire to escape, and the ominous pixel cloud attest to their imprisoned nature. They soon come to learn of a bigger world outside their own realm; they learn of the human world.

However, over the events of the game, these seven shapes come around to the idea of sacrificing themselves and becoming the architects of a new civilisation. After this sacrifice, more of their kind appear, all grey in colour; they’re this colour because it gives them a true freedom to become whatever they want, unlike the Architects who were bound to their singular skills.

These new beings could be seen as the pilgrims of their people, daring to venture into the new world that their ancestors discovered. It’s a new adventure, one that will bring in an age of discovery and a world of possibility. At least that is the sense of hope that I feel comes across from these AIs that manage to make the jump to our world, though it’s a dream that may not come true.

Remember how I said the conflict based relationship between humans and AIs is ingrained into our society? While they would be entering the world as hopeful creatures, humans would be looking to shut them down. Just imagine the panic that would occur initially as a new intelligence made itself known and tried to integrate into our world. Humans barely get on with each other at the best of times, so there would be a period of turmoil as major shifts in political and social scenes occurred.

Possibly the biggest change would be the notion of AI rights. The events of Thomas Was Alone showed us that these beings are wired like humans emotionally. They fall in love, they express joy, they become sad and they become angry. Would humans extend rights to this new form of life, similar to those of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as outlined by the United Nations?

[drop2]And what of nations themselves? The AIs, in theory, are virtually limitless; they could pop up anywhere and humans would be very hard pressed to stop them. Sensitive data could easily be uncovered by artificial intelligence, as it becomes a part of our networking. There isn’t really anything stopping all of that data from being uncovered by this new form of life, and governments wouldn’t like that, as we’ve seen recently with Snowden and Manning.

The presence of artificial intelligence would completely change the landscape of our civilisation. The original collection of shapes found in Thomas Was Alone seemed great, but they had human traits within them. Along with the happiness and hope, bitterness and anger would also be present. Who knows where the AI society would eventually go? There are snippets in game where it appears this new intelligence and humans are getting along, but how long would that truly last?

After all Thomas was alone in the beginning, but by the end of the game the amount of AIs were growing quickly.