When AlphaGo, a self-taught computer program that plays the board game Go, defeated world champion, Master Go player, 3–0 in a best-of-five contest in 2016, it was seen as a historic moment for science. . and Technology.
Millions of people around the world rooted in that competition for a ‘human’, a player by the name of Lee Sedol.
AlphaGo’s victory was probably the first time a computer had taught itself and perfected its game enough to defeat a human world champion, meaning it was only the beginning of what we now often call ‘artificial intelligence’ (AI). as listen.
AlphaGo’s underlying algorithms are potentially more general-purpose and could prove that scientists are making progress towards artificial general intelligence. Some commentators said that AlphaGo’s victory made for an excellent opportunity for human society to begin preparing for the potential future impact of machines with general-purpose intelligence on our lives.
Using games as use cases to improve technology is not unique or limited to implementing AI.
Gaming also happens to be one of the most relevant use cases of ‘blockchain’ technology. Blockchain-based games like Axie Infinity have been able to generate millions in revenue while creating livelihoods in the Philippines. Axie Infinity allows players to earn income by breeding, fighting and trading digital pets called Axie through non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and cryptocurrencies.
Today, sports players can literally ‘live’. They can ‘own’ swords, other such tools, avatars, elves and a variety of digital creations that can be used and even traded within gaming ‘metaverses’, a kind The online world of which has gained a lot of popularity all over the world.
This gets one thinking: How do technology-driven ‘use cases’ change the way we live our lives? The history of gaming shows that online games have been a gateway to new technologies for many decades.
While gaming and video games are often viewed as technologically advanced subcultures, in recent cases they have also been confused with gambling. On the other hand, gamers have become a part of this beautiful metaverse that allows them to move from one game to another with the same NFT assets that they themselves helped to create.
The development of advanced technology is often limited by the various commercial and practical risks involved; However, gaming has defied those odds.
In the backdrop of this progress, many Indian states are unfortunately stuck on the concepts of ‘skill’ versus ‘opportunity’. The recently proposed ban on online gambling (to be confused with online gaming) through the Karnataka Police (Amendment) Bill, 2021, covers skill sports and paints all competitions with the same brush saying ” Where money is at risk, that may be understood as gambling”.
Not long ago, the Madras High Court struck down the amendments to the Tamil Nadu Police and Gaming Act Part II in Wild Games v State of Tamil Nadu on the ground that it did not make sense, saying experts should decide As to which games are skill based, and where the outcome is determined by skill, such an activity does not amount to betting.
The debate over gaming as gambling (or not) dampens the spirits of tech enthusiasts who are willing to use the possibilities offered by the gaming metaverse to create a better way to interact and participate in social activities. to create a better world for people to live in.
Of course, there are data privacy and breach risks in gaming, and risks arising from the online exchange of crypto tokens and NFTs.
Still, if blockchain is the most path-breaking technology we have right now to verify records and protect our data, and AI is increasingly learning how to be smarter, then the intersection of blockchain, gaming and AI. I potentially have a lot more than us. can imagine at present.
Note that gaming events have overtaken traditional concerts in terms of the number of attendees. The highest attendance for a concert within a video game in 2020 has been reported by Travis Scott’s Astronomical Event, organized by US-based Epic Games’ Fortnite, at 12 million viewers. It is on track to surpass multiple sports viewership on spectator engagement. Through a game-streaming platform like Twitch.
The market prospects remain mostly open and the COVID pandemic has acted as an unexpected pivot pilot for the sector. Gaming does not discriminate between people on parameters created by humans. To take just one of the many examples, an 8-year-old man in downtown Manhattan is now friends with a 62-year-old woman in the suburbs of Kolkata because gaming made it possible.
Depending on the experiment, the virtual world of gaming enables the use of new technology to do what is not possible in the ‘real world’ due to the inherent and human-imposed limitations of the latter, which are considerable. In the absence of gaming, many new technologies would come and go and we didn’t realize how rich our lives could be.
Shivani Jha is a technical policy researcher and director of the eSports Players Welfare Association
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