Alternate Reality Games as Cybernetic Organisms

 This article is part of a series on Alternate Reality Gaming (ARG),  particularly as it relates to cutting-edge computing technologies. 

 Previous articles (here and here)  set out the starting point for this series, which is the idea that  while the truth or nature of any construct may be questioned, the  consequences of that construct’s existence should be considered  independently of its other characteristics. In other words, beliefs have  consequences and power independent of whether they are true, and games  are an excellent example of powerful motivators which may be based on  entirely and deliberately false beliefs. Furthermore, ARGs – which  invariably use the internet as a kind of “binding medium” – can be  thought of as computational systems or cybernetic organisms which can  explore and adapt to their environments much as living beings do. ARGs  are (or at least have the potential to be) distributed, intelligent  computational systems operating across a number of different platforms  and paradigms. 

 In this series, we will be exploring three broad types of ARG activity  which might be envisaged as part of this cybernetic framework, which may  be considered to correspond with Virtual Reality (VR), Artificial  Intelligence (AI), and Operating System / User Experience (OS/UX)  technologies. VR tech maps on to the creation of environments of various  types to explore, from narrative to set design to world-building.  Within an ARG, VR activity may be considered as that in which an  experiential space of some sort is created and offered for exploration.  AI tech is also exploratory, but in a more outward-facing sense, being  focused on developing networks and making connections external to the  ARG’s initial resource pool. In other words, AI does not offer a  pre-constructed space to explore as VR does, but is itself characterized  by exploration and creation of new frontiers and possibilities. The  Blockchain is a good example of AI mode technology because its defining  feature is the growth of networks which can be used to manage resources  and solve problems in previously unexplored or disconnected spaces. 

 Beyond these VR and AI modes (which is to say beyond the system’s  capacity for directly managing its internal and external environments),  there is a third type of ARG activity necessary to intelligently  coordinate the system’s overall behavior. OS/UX mode is essentially an  interpretive layer or subsystem which bridges the gap between the ARG’s  hardware substrate and most fundamental resources on the one hand, and  its intelligent subsystems (VR/AI modes) and other associated software  on the other, just as an Operating System does for traditional  computers. This third mode also bridges the gap between deep system  resources and ARG participants (and software agents, and any/all other  users) via User Experience (UX) designed interfaces of various types.  For a quick, memorable summary of these ideas, imagine a very simple  living creature – something like a jellyfish, perhaps – whose biological  functions can be broadly grouped into three categories as follows: 

1.  Manage internal environment and resources.
2. Explore, manage, and reproduce in external environment/resources.
3. Mediate between the above systems on the one hand (i.e. resources and  the organs which directly deal with them), and more complex and subtle  subsystems within the organism – its higher cognitive functions, perhaps  – on the other. 

 Example from the Zero State Alternate Reality Game (ZS-ARG) 

 Zero State (ZS) is an ARG, associated with The Foundation and Metric  Media, based on the premise that Transhumans from the future are working  to shape early 21st Century events to ensure human survival. The game  is named after the future civilization those people come from, which is  governed by a system of twelve AIs collectively called The Array. Each  AI, when acting alone, acts as leader of a vast organization called a  House – one of twelve, something like a cross between vast tribes and  corporations. 

 H01 : HOUSE SEM-BHU 

*Sem- and *Bhu- are word roots from the reconstructed  Proto-Indo-European language, more or less meaning “same” and “become”.  Together, these roots suggest a process of convergence, and offer a  possible origin for the name of the mythic city of Shamballah (Sambhal).  The name Sem-Bhu reflects this House’s function within ZS (both the  fictional future State and the real ARG), which is to bind ZS’ various  elements together as a single functional whole, operating together  effectively as an organism. House Sem-Bhu does that by maintaining three  agencies (called Sections) which interact with the other Houses,  organizing and facilitating their activities in ways that correspond to  the three modes: VR (Section 5), AI (Section 6), OS/UX (Section 7). 

Of course, these distinctions are not too strict – complex systems are  fluid things – but they do offer a kind of guide by which the system is  focused on the same basic environmental interactions that characterize  intelligence and life. House Sem-Bhu is itself considered to be part of  Section 7, a kind of “higher function” in the ZS organism, and the  remaining articles in this series will discuss other cybernetic  functions which can be instantiated in ARGs and similar meta-systems. 

 By Amon Twyman
Co-published on Transhumanity.net