Ben Byford
AI ethics | freelance web and games designer
World building
Games Ethics
Labour practises wages, work hours, equal opportunities, mis-conduct, sharing in the fruits of labour, quality. Publishings ownership, creative ideas vision. Environment production, file size / bandwidth, NFTs, hardware. Dark patterns personalised pricing, profiling, pay to win, PPI data, advertising, aggressive subscription.
Addiction / nudging notifications, limited time offers / events, habit forming (e.g. time away from screens), gamification (streaks), gambling, loot boxes / gacha (skinny boxes). Age restrictions content responsibility, access / filtering, purchases.
Disability / accessability skill level / difficulty, epilepsy, legibility, game mecahanic legibility, gameplay (e.g. QTEs). Commerce markets (sellable items, weapons, hats costumes etc) NFTs. PvP interactions chat, personal space, bullying, VR personal space. Game content and values story, gameplay, games about ethics / philosophy / education, ethical reasoning, desensitisation, harmful or inappropriate experiences, diversity of gameplay, representations of gender / race etc, games as therapy / escape / flow state. Community backlash, toxicity. Security bad actors (cryptojacking, keyhacking, PPI stealing). AI content general IP (training & product), unintended outcomes, bias, automated manipulation, personalised experiences
Ethics
wikipedia
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct.
What is right to do?
What systems or frameworks should we make to help?
What ought to be created?
What behaviour is and isn't permissable or desireable?
What does a good life look like?
What kind of world are we creating?
World building
World building
World building
World building
What world do we want to live in?
World building
World building
World building
World building
Game worlds
Universalise
low wages,
long work hours,
unequal opportunities,
misogynistic,
owned by the 1%,
low quality,
homogeneous creative vision.
carbon intensive
Nudging players to align political beliefs
The good the bad and the exploitative
The good the bad and the exploitative
If we are opptimising for increased profits ONLY,
then we are in an arms race for the economic exploitation of humans.
If we are opptimising for increased profits ONLY,
then we are in an arms race for the economic exploitation of humans.
Phycological exploitation is merely a new frontier
Discriminative, exploitative, unaccountable, dogmatic, unsafe, unreliable
Creative works
Exploitation played out in games as critical commentary
MObile phone tycoon
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Philosophy in games
Talos principle, spec ops the line, bio shock 1, 2, 3, SOMA,
Nier, Nier automata, shin megami tensei, The Forgotten City, Planescape: Torment, DR trolly's problems
World building
World building
Not every video game needs to be a mediation on Kant or
... but every game can help
create worlds
Tomorrow and
Tomorrow and
Tomorrow
Tomorrow and
Tomorrow and
Tomorrow
VR sickness
Personal space,
toxic behaviour / bullying,
Freedoms of expression,
inacting Gameplay mechanism
What about
AI?
representation / bias / Dogma
unintended outcomes
Personalised experiences
automated manipulation
training data IP
product IP
YOUR JOB
"Let's all engage iN
thoughtful CREATIVE engineering.”
Ben Byford
Thank you
V & A games exhibition:
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/about-videogames-exhibition
Long Article on ethics and games:
https://celiahodent.com/ethics-in-the-videogame-industry/
Philosophy tube on games industry and ethics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYkLVU5UGM8
DOOM paper:
Games Ethics
By Ben Byford
Games Ethics
Tech ethics bristol talk 2024
