The Achievement of Animals: An Ethology of AI in Video Games

Abstract

Amidst the excitement, predictions, investment and fear that have attended the development and application of artificial intelligence in recent decades, an important factor has been largely overlooked. Since the late 1970s, popular media culture and its lived experience have brought AI into the everyday spaces of commercial and domestic leisure. Software agents, figured as monsters, aliens and racing cars have tracked A* algorithmic paths across arcade screens, finite state machines sensing and responding to their players’ movements and actions. And, with less graphical flair, conversational agents played out a million ludic Turing tests, parsing simple commands in the navigation of text-based adventures, tracking through dialogue trees, and conducting talking therapy as simulated psychotherapists.