Artificial Intelligence, Video Games and Human Rights 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in video games is a different subfield, and it is a different concept from academic AI. This concept serves to improve the game-player experience rather than decision-making and machine learning, as to how AI is described in academic literature (Baweja S., 2020). Even though AI seems like it holds a short history, it has been an integral part of video games since its inception, which refers to the years of the 1950s (Grant Eugene F. et al., 1952). To give a short description, we may say that AI generates adaptive, responsive, and intelligent behaviors just as human-like intelligence in video games.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is developing every day, and it is becoming a more widespread phenomenon in the contemporary world. In literature, it refers to systems that are programmed to work or act like human beings, and moreover, the concept involves solving problems or improving themselves. (The Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project, 2021). Eventually, AI is expected to be able to perform the same things as humans would do. In video games, players’ expectation is mostly to experience the virtual world as reality. 

AI’s involvement in everyday life creates some concern and an area of research. These technologies can affect many sectors and daily life, such as work, video games, education, social care, etc. There are several ways AI could provide significant opportunities to improve human rights across many areas of life. For instance, it may provide more personalized education and assist disabled people to live a dignified life in their everyday life. (The Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project, 2021). Another example given here is video games; as mentioned in previous parts, video games can deliver a message for players and may hold both positive and negative impacts on the players. However, several opposite issues need to be re-evaluated, and AI may have the potential to undermine or, even worse, violate human rights provisions. 

It is crucial to say that children are the most who are interacting with AI technologies in many different ways, such as virtual assistants, adaptive learning software, or video games. AI’s impact on their lives is profound, yet UNICEF found out that children’s rights are an afterthought at best when it comes to AI policies. In response to this, UNICEF has developed a draft Policy Guidance on AI for Children, promoting children's rights and increasing awareness of how AI systems can uphold or undermine these rights (UN News, 2021).

Togelius explains that video games are designed to challenge human intelligence by making the video game players focus on aspects including overcoming obstacles or following next/sub-stories. In this condition, video games are delivering a message or teaching something all the time -the concern here is what it teaches -. These clarifications by Togelius make video games an ideal environment to train AI. Therefore, it creates a cycle in which video game players, AI, and human rights learn or develop thanks to each other (AI for Good, 2021). Artificial Intelligence should be in accordance with ethical boundaries of human rights provisions. There should be the right balance between the development of AI and human rights protection (Council of Europe, 2019). 

In practice, it is hard to keep these boundaries on board since every way of access to those games cannot be controlled whom to access. In other words, children are the most who are at risk as mentioned above and the restriction on video games such as “R18+” may not be effective in cases of crowded families. For instance, if the parents have two children brothers or sisters in different age groups, we assume that they are playing different video games that belong to younger or older age groups. In this case, a younger child may have the access to video games that belong to older age groups so this may have an impact on his/her psychology depending on the game type (e.g. violent, sexual). Here we may say that parents are the one who needs to control these possibilities. Even though video games follow the ethical boundaries of human rights provisions, there can be always a  gap in practice and the responsibility is not only in the video games sector.

Here I would like to suggest you see my “Are Video Games Dangerous for Humanity?” article in order to have a critical approach to any kind of art form including video games. 

References

Baweja S., (2020). “Beginning of Artificial Intelligence, End of Human Rights”. LSE Human Rights blog. 

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/humanrights/2020/07/16/beginning-of-artificial-intelligence-end-of-human-rights/ (Accessed on 26/12/2021).

Grant, Eugene F.; Lardner, Rex (1952). "The Talk of the Town – It". The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1952/08/02/it (Accessed on 26/12/2021).

Arm Company. “What Is AI in Gaming?”. https://www.arm.com/glossary/ai-in-gaming (Accessed on 26/12/2021).

The Human Rights, Big Data and Technology Project, (2021). “How AI Affects Human Rights”.  https://www.hrbdt.ac.uk/what-we-do/how-ai-affects-human-rights/ (Accessed in 27.12.2021).

UNICEF, (2021). “Digital Child’s Play: protecting children from the impacts of AI”. UN News Global Perspective Human Stories. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/11/1106002 (Accessed in 27.12.2021).

AI for Good, (2021). “How video games can help Artificial Intelligence deliver real-world impact”. ‎UN AI Actions. https://aiforgood.itu.int/how-video-games-can-help-artificial-intelligence-deliver-real-world-impact/ (Accessed on 26/12/2021).

Council of Europe, (2019). “Unboxing artificial intelligence: 10 steps to protect human rights”. https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/thematic-work/artificial-intelligence (Accessed on 26/12/2021).