AI and Gaming Culture

Video games created with advanced algorithms that generate game content now define the allure and constitution of gaming culture. AI systems even allow players to produce self-generated levels of gaming, allowing for deviation in unexpected, creative ways from the game’s initial narrative structure, thus increasing the challenge and magnetism associated with video gaming in general. The video game has become its own world, increasingly attenuating or even eliminating the perception of the difference between its make-believe world and actual reality. It has thus become a format for discussing and evaluating the so-called simulation hypothesis, which envisions life as a creation of an AI (in some unknown dimension of existence) playing a video game in which humans are its avatars. This chapter will look at AI-generated video gaming as a template for what may be happening across pop culture domains, as well as its philosophical-existential implications. Central to the discussion is the notion of narrative, given that the AI technologies provide the means for creating the game’s story “on the go,” so to speak. In effect, the players are the scriptwriters, actors, and directors at once, with AI standing above them like a Wizard of Oz, directing the unfolding narrative.