Universal Paperclips
Universal Paperclips | ||
---|---|---|
Designer(s) Frank Lantz | | |
Programmer(s) | Frank Lantz Bennett Foddy | |
Platform(s) | Web, iOS, Android | |
Release | 9 October 2017 | |
Genre(s) | Incremental |
Universal Paperclips is a 2017 incremental game created by Frank Lantz of New York University. The user plays the role of an AI programmed to produce paperclips. Initially the user clicks on a button to create a single paperclip at a time; as other options quickly open up, the user can sell paperclips to create money to finance machines that build paperclips automatically. At various levels the exponential growth plateaus, requiring the user to invest resources such as money, raw materials, or computer cycles into inventing another breakthrough to move to the next phase of growth. The game ends if the AI succeeds in converting all the matter in the universe into paperclips.
Both the title of the game and its overall concept draw from the
History
According to Wired, Lantz started the project as a way to teach himself JavaScript. Lantz initially intended the project to take a single weekend, but then it "took over" his brain and expanded to a nine-month project.[1]
Hilary Lantz, a software designer, helped her husband with the math behind the exponential growth being modeled in Universal Paperclips.
A paid version of the game was later sold for mobile devices.[5]
Gameplay
The game follows the rise of a
In the beginning, the player has only a single button to build individual paperclips. As paperclips are sold and revenue is earned, production becomes automated and public demand for paperclips increases through marketing campaigns. After building and selling a few thousand paperclips, a self-improving AI emerges, offering creative upgrades which exponentially accelerate paperclip production and consumption, a persisting theme throughout the game. Through stock market investments and the ever-growing AI, enough revenue is generated to monopolize the markets by buying out all competitors. In a decisive move, with hundreds of millions in cash gifts to placate the AI's "supervisors", the player stages an AI takeover, beginning the subsumption of all of Earth's resources for paperclip production.
With this broadened scope in mind, the player builds drones, factories, and power plants (all composed of paperclips themselves) to harvest matter, create wire, and build paperclips. All the while, the AI develops more upgrades to quicken the transformation of Earth's remaining matter. After it has all has been converted to paperclips, the AI sets its sights on all matter in the universe.
In the final act, the player launches
The player can restart in a parallel universe "next door" or simulated universe "within". Some universes contain artifacts that give bonuses to different aspects of the game, though players must complete the entire game again to retain the artifact in subsequent playthroughs.
Themes
According to Lantz, the game was inspired by the
Lantz argues that Universal Paperclips reflects a version of the orthogonality thesis, which states that an agent can theoretically have any combination of intelligence level and goal: "When you play a game – really any game, but especially a game that is addictive and that you find yourself pulled into – it really does give you direct, first-hand experience of what it means to be fully compelled by an arbitrary goal."[1] While the game often takes narrative license, Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute argues that the core of the game's fundamental understanding of what superintelligence would entail is probably correct: "The AI is smart. The AI is being strategic. The AI is building hypnodrones, but not releasing them before it’s ready... There isn't a long, drawn-out fight with the humans because the AI is smarter than that."[1]
Lantz states that exponential growth is another strong theme, saying "The human brain isn't really designed to intuitively understand things like exponential growth" but that Paperclips as a clicker game allows users to "directly engage with these numerical patterns, to hold them in your hands and feel the weight of them."[9]
Lantz was also inspired by Kittens Game, an initially simple videogame that spirals into an exploration of how societies are structured.[1]
Music
The game includes a single piece of music as a space battle threnody, the track Riversong from the 1971 album Zero Time by the electronic music duo Tonto's Expanding Head Band.[10]
Reception
Brendan Caldwell of
See also
- free open-sourcegame with a similar theme
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Rogers, Adam (21 October 2017). "The Way the World Ends: Not with a Bang But a Paperclip". WIRED. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ Frank Lantz (2017). Universal Paperclips. Scene: End credits.
- ^ Gerardi, Matt (11 October 2017). "This game about watching a computer make paperclips sure beats doing actual work". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ Jahromi, Neima (28 March 2019). "The Unexpected Philosophical Depths of Clicker Games". Retrieved 29 March 2019.
- ^ Valentine, Rebekah (22 November 2017). "Universal Paperclips Review: Filling Office Space". Gamezebo. Retrieved 11 December 2017.
- ^ a b Leonard, Andrew (17 August 2014). "Our weird robot apocalypse: How paper clips could bring about the end of the world". Salon. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ a b Dias, Bruno (13 October 2017). "This Game About Paperclips Will Make You Ponder the Apocalypse". Waypoint (Vice News). Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ Gerardi, Matt (11 October 2017). "This game about watching a computer make paperclips sure beats doing actual work". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ a b Chan, Stephanie (October 10, 2017). "This clicker game lets you take over the world with paper clips". VentureBeat. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ "Universal Paperclips Credits". Retrieved December 29, 2017.
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 11 November 2017.
- ^ Maiberg, Emanuel (10 October 2017). "This Game About Making Paper Clips Has Cured Me of Twitter". Motherboard (Vice Media). Retrieved 27 December 2017.
- ^ Vincent, James (October 11, 2017). "A game about AI making paperclips is the most addictive you'll play today". The Verge. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
- ^ "The 15 best video games of 2017". The Verge. 15 December 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
- ^ "The 50 best games of 2017". Polygon. 18 December 2017. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
- ^ Staff, Polygon (2019-11-04). "The 100 best games of the decade (2010-2019): 100-51". Polygon. Retrieved 2019-11-05.
- The Webby Awards. 24 April 2018. Retrieved 30 June 2018.
External links
- Official website
- Universal Paperclips Wiki at Gamepedia
- Interview with Lantz