I’ve long believed that games are the perfect tool to figure out how to deal with all sorts of cultural problems. They are a safe space to prototype reactions to the big shifts we face as a society – like when a new technology suddenly changes how we communicate, work, or assign value.
You know, just like AI does at the moment.
In this light I enjoyed the latest episode of Post Games a lot. In it Chris Plant sits down with Frank Lantz, the creator of Universal Paperclips (the game where you play as an ever-optimizing AI determined to make as many paperclips as possible). During their conversation, Frank Lantz makes a point that I feel deeply, too:
“I think that, to me, the correct stance to have about all this stuff is one of deep confusion. I think if you're not, like, slightly confused and like, look, I'm not sure what's going on, then I think you're not paying attention. (...) You know, there's a whole bunch of obvious positions one can hold right now, where obviously these things are not living. They're just, you know, algorithms. It's just math. It's just a complicated text predictor (...) I think that's crazy. I also think it's crazy to be like, oh, no, it's obvious that this is the godhead and that we're just on the verge of being destroyed by this thing that is going to be to us the way we are to ants. I don't think it's right to have a lot of certainty. I think a kind of deep uncertainty and curiosity is the best thing to have about this stuff.”
Games can help us deal with this uncertainty. Just like they did countless times before.