In ‘Playing With Reality,’ the neuroscientist Kelly Clancy both celebrates and critiques ‘how games have come to dominate modern thought.’
Among the first things a newborn child is presented with are objects of play: a rattle to shake, a toy to crinkle, a stuffed animal to squeeze, blocks to stack. Through these playthings, the child begins to sample sounds, textures and sensations. The world soon begins to reveal itself as a kind of game, the rules of which the child must learn if she is to survive: A cry can lead to an object being given, or taken away. A smile receives a smile in return.
“Play is a tool the brain uses to generate data on which to train itself, a way of building better models of the world to make better predictions,” Clancy writes“Games are more than an invention; they are an instinct.” Clancy, a writer and researcher who previously worked at Google’s AI company DeepMind, argues that human intelligence is profoundly insatiable.
Yet Clancy is suspicious of how games have been adopted and interpreted as measures of human intelligence, and critical of their use in military forecasting. Generations of kings, generals and political strategists have used games to simulate the outcomes of war. Today, Clancy writes, militaries treat video games as ripe recruiting grounds. Drone warfare has blurred the line between fictitious virtual battlefields and real conflict zones.
“Game theory posits humans as a fixed bundle of preferences, when they are, in fact, learning systems,” Clancy writes. “It’s common for people to confuse their personal goals with those quietly manufactured for them by the games in which they participate, wittingly or unwittingly.” We have all been conscripted into various games not of our own design, recruited to play roles that we may not have otherwise chosen for ourselves .
“Playing With Reality” is a foreboding prehistory of AI. Clancy conveys how we became so in thrall to gaming that we forgot where the field of play stops and the real world begins — who gets to be a player and who is merely being played.and teaches at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
MSNBC host praises Biden as ‘playing chess’ while Trump ‘at best is playing Hungry Hungry Hippos’MSNBC co-hosts compared the competition between Biden and Trump as one playing chess while the other plays 'Hungry Hungry Hippos' for the upcoming presidential election.
Read more »
Playing by their own 'Rules,' reality TV Stars Ariana Madix, Katie Maloney open WeHo sandwich shop'Vanderpump Rules' stars Ariana Madix and Katie Maloney's new WeHo sandwich shop is less reality TV and more rom-com. Something About Her pays homage to Hollywood's favorite leading ladies.
Read more »
‘A Truer Reality Beyond Reality’: Hannah Arendt's Warning About How Totalitarianism Takes RootA Q&A with a leading Arendt scholar adapts the philosopher’s ideas to today’s politics.
Read more »
Novak Djokovic Dealing With Injury, Noncommittal on Playing French Open QuarterfinalsNovak Djokovic, fresh off another five-set win in the Round of 16, is not sure if he'll be able to continue playing in the French Open quarterfinals.
Read more »
Kyrie Irving Shares Regret and What He Takes from Playing in BostonKyrie Irving understands how he'll get received at TD Garden in the NBA Finals. It's a building he returns to in a far different place than when his last playoff series against the Celtics while with the Nets.
Read more »
Who Is Chiwetel Ejiofor Playing in Venom 3?Venom: The Last Dance's complicated understanding of the multiverse, and its use of a Doctor Strange star, makes for a bit of a mess.
Read more »