L&M 4 - Do Gamers Dream of Electric People?

Blade Runner and the short story upon which it is based have long been held as parables for the development of AI and intelligent computers. Where is the cut-off point between a machine and a living thing? Can something created from technology ever be alive? Whilst a very real concern in robotics, not enough attention is given to the concept of AI in video games - we praise games such as F.E.A.R. for their intelligent AI, and the success of AI in games relies upon how much, to players, they feel like real people. There is, then, a moral quandary in video games, too - it's one thing to make machines do manual labour in the real world. It's quite another to simulate, as far as possible, real people to shoot at in video games. With the onset of machine learning, there is, of course, the possibility for natural “evolution” of intelligence by machines – in the same way that humans (as per a scientific perspective, anyway) were not created intelligent but evolved over time, through learning and developing in response to external stimuli, machines could well evolve beyond the scope of human design. This happens during development in the modern day already – where bugs that lead to strangely intelligent behaviour by AI are often called “unintended features”, and left in for the game’s benefit.

In the latest Modern Warfare, some enemies will drop their guns and beg for their lives, independently, if they see the situation is hopeless. As a developer myself I recognise this is just complicated behavioural trees and not actual self-preservation - but the average gamer will only see a surrendering individual at their mercy, held at gunpoint. Is it then murder to pull the trigger? Perhaps not yet - but one day, it might be.

Works Cited

Vivendi Universal Games, F.E.A.R., October 2005

Activision, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019), October 2019