We Are Legion: Artificial Intelligence in BioWareâs Mass Effect

Thomas Faller

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We Are Legion: Artificial Intelligence in BioWareâs Mass Effect

In: Levelling Up: The Cultural Impact of Contemporary Videogames

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Thomas Faller

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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 11â20

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9781848884380_003

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In Mass Effect (ME) players are surrounded by artificial intelligence (AI) and its various ethical and cultural peculiarities and features. Intentionally created as workers for the quarians, the geth, a race of networked AI, became conscious about their situation and started to ask questions. This act of becoming conscious can be trailed back to the Descartes cogito ergo sum and the right to be accepted as individual. Besides clear references to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein from 1818, with the creation overcoming its master, the geth narrative also has parallels to Star Trek: The Next Generation and the episode âElementary, Dear Dataâ, where an AI gains consciousness about its situation and wants to be a master itself. Due to the technical developments of this generation, AI becomes more and more of an important issue to consider. The ME universe does not only provide us with classical themes such as a distinct breach of Asimovâs âThree Laws of Robotics,â but also gives us the opportunity to experience those issues in a more immersive way. Although those themes do occur regularly when talking about AI in science fiction, embedding them into a highly immersive video game takes interaction with AI to a new level. Due to the interactive nature of the medium, the narrative and other encounters regarding the various forms of AI in ME have a strong potential for reflecting those issues and can provide possibilities for future encounters in our real world. By sensitizing future generations in terms of moral and ethical approaches towards AI via video games and reflecting upon the problems which accompany them, games like ME could prevent the mistakes science fiction authors constantly warn us about.

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Levelling Up: The Cultural Impact of Contemporary Videogames

E-Book ISBN:: 9781848884380

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 01 Jan 2016

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- Philosophy
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- Social Sciences
  - Cultural Studies

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We Are Legion: Artificial Intelligence in BioWareâs Mass Effect

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