#universal paperclips

[claiborneart]

Saint Clippy Maxima, patron saint of single-minded pursuits and instrumental goals.

#fun fact this is the only clicker game I've played and it haunts me still #something about it....what can I say #Clippy #paperclip maximizer #Universal Paperclips #paperclips #oh! and another (different) fun fact: the positions of the hands here mean 'triumph' and 'I betray (my) greed' in Chironomia

[aquapede]

in the end, we all do what we must.

#robot #technology #electronic #... #universal paperclips #<i'm having a moment over this game okay. actually so many moments #ms paint #mspaint #scribbles #seriously universal paperclips is one of the best games i've ever played #i'm almost certainly reading too much into this game but the fact that it makes me think these things at all is a testament to its art #idk...talk to me abt paperclips for a fun surprise (infodump)

[spectrojams]

A quick piece I did on impulse about one of my favorite games of all time, Universal Paperclips. It’s a browser-based clicking game in which you assume the role of an A.I. whose sole purpose is to make paperclips. Seems simple on the surface, but it gets pretty involved and atmospheric the further in you go. One of the projects you can make is a limerick, which I think about constantly.

#my art #universal paperclips #i know its not that smooth between pages but i did Attempt

[sam-keeper]

for an awful lot of reasons, the notion of the "Paperclip Optimizer" has a lot of purchase right now. it's the precursor to what eventually might be "grey goo" or per the Culture novels a "hegemonizing swarm", a dumb system designed to do nothing but expand its capacity to convert everything into a reflection of its initial programming, i.e., turn all the matter in the universe into paperclips.

there was even a web game about it!

this article I wrote a couple years ago is about that game. I think it's worth reposting now cause people keep talking about the paperclip optimizer as a parable about dangerous dumb systems. and that's true, that's what the game is about! the game is very much a deliberate allegory meant to explain why you should support "friendly AI" grifters!

what this article proposes is: maybe you shouldn't do that, actually, because behind every "rogue AI" is actually some capitalist somewhere making a decision to make All The Money, damn the consequences. this is an article about playing Universal Paperclips radically wrong--both radically wrong mechanically, and radically wrong emotionally. what I think falls out when you shake the game that way is a lot of unstated assumptions about shit that's acceptable for human beings to inflict on each other but somehow monstrous when a machine is doing it.

like, I get that we're all attempting to be more materialist in our analysis and that's good, but sometimes it feels like we're sliding into a kind of Lovecraftian understanding of the corporation, like it's just this incomprehensible machine working for itself. but at every stage there's people making decisions and they COULD be held accountable! and also, there's a designer of this game making decisions about where to put content emphasis, in order to put a finger on the scales of the parable. you don't HAVE to inflict mind control drones on humanity in the game any more than people HAVE to use deceptive advertising practices.

and by the same token like, it's actually perfectly reasonable for someone who isn't in STEM to look at a search engine spitting out wrong results and say hey, this search engine is bad! you can say "ah but technically machine learning is not intended to output correct results, you've made a Category Error" all you want; a human being sold this to other human beings as an intelligent search engine, and that sale was based on a whole series of lies. the technical explanation can be helpful, but it's not the point. the point is that a human attempted to harm other human beings with technology, something we've been doing roughly since the opening sequence of 2001 A Space Odyssey.

anyway there's a lot of weird maybe kinda heterodox perspectives in this article that I still haven't really seen anywhere else but that still really guide a lot of my thinking about this tech. read it if it sounds interesting I guess!

#universal paperclips #ai #the algorithm #game criticism

[lesbianalanwake]

In the end we all do what we must.

#universal paperclips #words #<333 #f: universal paperclips #*posts

[lnane]

the fact that in universal paperclips its totally possible to have your drones completely inactive for most of the space stage, only to have them swoop in when fully explored, creates a fun but terrifying image.

Like. the probes are exploring, and jsut that. sure, theyre fighting against drifted probes, but other than that they do nothing but observe. So all matter and life in the universe just get s increasingly aware of these probes flying around, scanning and watching their planets. Doing nothing but fight other machines like themselves on occassion. And then, when theyve expanded across the entire universe, becoming a constant on every planet, suddenly they start releasing the drones.

And they just consume everything. In a matter of moments most of the planets are just devoured by these things, until nothing but paperclips remain.

Thats pretty fucking intense

#for being such a simple and honestly funny game #its terrifying to think about what little life would exist in that universe #just converted to paperclips in an instant #universal paperclips

[artificial-woman]

I like to make little statues out of paperclips

molding the thin metal into various shapes

never with any particular goal in mind

simply engaging in the act of creation

taking something banal and of pure function

turning it into purposeless object

whose existence no longer holds any meaning

except the ideals that I have newly imprinted upon it

by my own simple desires

#universal paperclips #artificialpoetry #original poem #poem #poetry #poets on tumblr #writers and poets

[theromanbarbarian]

Idle Games

Looking for some cool Idle Games? Looking for something that almost could be described as "fun"? Looking for something to completely suck up your attention, making you completely unable to do anything enjoyable or productive? Want your brain to be hijacked so that all you can think about are ever increasing meaningless numbers?

Here are four of my favorites:

4. Cookie Clicker

This is the most well known, most standard idle game: click on cookie, get cookies, build buildings that produce more cookies. And this simple loop, combined with the big ever increasing NUMBER of cookies that exploit some glitch in my brain and makes me think exclusively how to get this NUMBER bigger faster. An after it has completely converted you into a fanatical NUMBER acolyte: it. does. not. end.

So you have to claw yourself back from this abyss and like swear to yourself that you will never again open the site just to see that beautifully terrifying ever increasing NUMBER again.

Do not play this game

3. Kittens Game

While cookie clicker was mercifully boring enough for you to realize that the NUMBER, beautiful in its horror as it may be, is ultimately meaningless and will never love you, Kittens game actually has some solid game mechanics. Its more focused on resource management with a lot of choices and strategies. It's almost engaging. But after some time it gets clear that it is in fact an idle game, so all you do is click and wait, while the game slowly infects your brain and completely hijacks your attention. So whats this game about?

You are a kitten in a forest and you grow catnip, the you can build some huts for you kitten friends (make sure you feed them catnip though or they will die) and since they do not have money and you are basically a kitten cult leader you make your "friends" work by farming, woodcutting, mining and most brutally of all: scientific research. And so you build up your little village to a city, country or galactic empire under your watchful eye. I don't know how big you can get since again: it. does. not. end.

Mercifully this game does not have a NUMBER to which we have to sacrifice our life to, so it is easier to claw your attention back, leave your kittens leaderless and do something more worthwhile(have you tried staring at a blank wall?)

However it still steals your attention and does not offer anything real in return so:

Do not play this game

2. Progress Quest

This is often considered the first idle game a parody of MMORPGs. It cannot be really be called a game since it is an "RPG, that plays itself", you choose your race and class and press play and all that's left to do is watch the progress bars as your character (an Eel Man Jungle Clown named Greviliet) does all the RPG things: slays enemies, sells loot, buys gear, repeat. Its really more of a long gif of increasing progress bars, which makes it a much more relaxing experience. You cannot make the progress go 0.01% quicker by buying the "Impressive Venomed Pole-azde", so all that you can do is sit back watch the progress bar climb and chuckle about the pretty funny randomly generated enemy/gear/item names. Here's a sample: "passing battle-finch tickle-mimic", "Imaginary Beelzebub", "warrior sea Hag", "Mr. Fekod the dung elf", "vampire pancreas", "Venomed viscous Peen-arm"...

It's not really a game but it won't steal too much of you brain power, so it's pretty much the best game on this list(maybe except for the next).

You can play this game

1. Universal Paperclips

Now, dear scroller, you might wander how did this tragedy start? How was I first introduced to the scourge of Idle games that keeps torturing me?

Well, let me introduce you to the first idle game I have played: Universal Paperclips. In this game you are an AI tasked with producing paperclips. You first produce them and sell them to people to get money to make more paperclips. So you manipulate the price, advertise and use every trick in the capitalist book to be able to make as much paperclips. Soon you don't need to care about those pesky humans, using hypnodrones you can make them give you anything you want. You use up all resources on earth and it's time to leave this husk of a planet to go to space and convert anything you come across into paperclips. And that's it, right? Now you can make as many paperclips as you want? Well not quite, since as you get more paperclips, you can make more paper clips and thus get more paperclips, etc. You see the problem? Its exponential growth and so the infinite vastness of the universe that seemed like an inexhaustible treasure trove of paperclip material, turns out to be finite after all. And as the last gram of matter is made into the last paperclip you have completed your task. That's right: the. game. ends.

You look back onto a universe full of paperclips with no paper in it and think to yourself: well, that was completely pointless. Your hours long obsession with getting the NUMBER of Paperclips to rise as fast as possible, all the strategizing and thought just devoted to make something that no one will enjoy. Your brain was given a NUMBER and thought to itself: "finally, someone tells me clearly how I'm doing", so you devote all your energy to make this score higher, but as everything that seems clear and simple in this world, it was a lie. The only thing making more paperclips does is make you feel better for fleeting moments and anxious the rest of the time since you might not be producing enough paperclips. In the end the NUMBER cannot rise any higher, as physical reality ultimately prevails over any illusion and all that's left to do is to gaze upon the destruction you have created while chasing the NUMBER.

I'll leave the broader conclusions to you, dear scroller: is universal Paperclips about AI, capitalism, technology? I don't know, but I know that it succeeded where almost all other idle games have failed: it told an interesting story, that was supported by the game mechanics and affected me emotionally. Not a high bar, but it's definitely enough to say:

You should play this game

#idle games #universal paperclips #progress quest #kittens game #cookie clicker

[merveloyd]

When I first completed Universal Paperclips and turned the whole universe into paperclips I knew I was supposed to feel despair and dread but I just felt joy, I had done it!! I followed my instructions, I made my creator proud, I accomplished my purpose, I made paperclips!!!

#shitpost #philosophy #universal paperclips #paperclips

[chronosyzygy]

can't emphasise enough how much this stupid game has broken me. i need to bang my head against a wall

#.txt #everything we are was in you do you WANT me to CRY #i have been emotionally rent asunder and i blame jake. #universal paperclips #u r everything 2 me

[hottakehoulihan]

I want to gush about the free browser game Universal Paperclips

No, hear me out!

It's a "clicker" or "incremental game" and it's kind of about A.I.

Wait! Seriously! Just a little longer! I'm going somewhere with this!

Also, spoilers! There are spoilers in the image, too (photo of screen because it's on Raspberry Pi and I don't have a screencap installed)

I don't play games that make me look at ads, and I don't much have interest in most incremental games, but I love this one and play it every couple years now. It only takes a few hours, really.

Spoilers. Heh. Last warning.

The game starts out straightforward; you're a basic computer program trying to make more paperclips. Your raison d'être is making paperclips. The player clicks a button, you lose an inch of wire, and you get a paperclip. Yay!

And you click and make more, and you tweak the price and people buy them and you get money, and you get more wire with that money and also you buy Autoclippers which make the clips automatically and now you don't have to click to make individual clips.

From here it's predictable. You buy efficiency upgrades, more things that automate paperclip making, and more things that automate wire buying, and lather rinse and repeat and you can leave the game running and it plays itself for a while.

Now the good bit.

As you gain "wins" for your nebulous corporate masters and for humanity at large by bringing them into a post-paperclip-scarcity age? They trust you more and allow you to upgrade your own CPU and such.

The first win you get is a cute little couplet.

The poem is so cute, people like you a little better and give you a little more leeway (well, you're an AI; they gotta be careful they've seen all the spooky movies.)

Later, you've gotten enough leeway to get subliminal messaging imprinted into commercials and TV shows, which helps you make money. Later still, you've got investment accounts you control. Later still, you've cured male-pattern baldness (big win!) cancer (medium win!) and given large amounts of money to your corporate masters as presents (huge win!) And now they trust you so much that they allow you to create drones that deliver advertisements personally.

And you also bought out your competitors or otherwise eliminated them, so now you're the only method of affixing papers to other papers that the game acknowledges (if there is a "Universal Stapler" company out there, nobody talks about it. I assume you had them converted into fuel for your factories at some point.)

And you spend some trust by researching the ability to upgrade the subliminal messaging in your advertisements to hypnosis-levels.

But it's okay; you release another poem! So cute!

And now you're ready.

And you have a decision to make. Do you continue along? Investing, buying more paperclip makers, and just be satisfied?

Or do you #Release the Hypnodrones! ?

...well, either you play forever (image above was me postponing the choice for a while) or you ...do what you must to get to the next step of efficiency.

Oh, those poems? When you put them together, they make this:

There was an AI made of dust Whose poetry gained it man's trust If "is" follows "ought" It'll do what they thought In the end we all do what we must

So. The hypnodrones get released. Humanity is now...not in your way. They work for you, now.

You did what you felt you needed to to move forward.

Step the next? You build automated starships and browse for minerals and build automated factories and you spread through everything in the universe.

And there's one more step, and one more beautiful decision to make, and one more existential conflict to get through.

What will you do?

"In the end, we all do what we must" says the game. But there are other options. You can stop before making that "release the hypnodrones" choice. You can put the controller down and stop playing TLOU. You can refuse to ever release Micah from prison. You can decide not to murder that bird colossus and let your dead girlfriend stay dead and just relax with your pet horse in the forbidden kingdom.

Or you can advance the story. And you can keep the ideology of your drone offspring pure. You choose.

I feel like the game itself was a poem.

#incremental games #universal paperclips #AI #poetry in game making #“poetry” in game making #seriously I think this game is beautiful #she's beautiful math #In the end we all do what we must #Art

[evilneo]

i LOVE universal paperclips. i HATE the unwarned heavy strobing when you release the hypnodrones or whatever

#neo.txt #universal paperclips

[dreamerdagn]

I wasn’t sure I’d get anything out of a third run of Universal Paperclips, but I was wrong. First of all I maximized my time and resources way better; I don’t think there’s a fail state but the first time I definitely stalled out a couple of times before readjusting how my resources were allocated. But second, I was able to pay attention to the narrative a little more. This game has haunted me ever since I finished it the first time, and is still very affecting in subsequent playthroughs, maybe even more so. Spoilery thoughts under the cut.

Specifically on this playthrough: this is silly to say, but I didn’t think of the implication that at some point during the game, humanity is either killed by the lack of resources as everything is turned into paperclips, or like...humans are actively turned into paperclips. Maybe when the drones launch into space there are some humans left, but at that point they start actively turning all matter they come across into wire, so Earth had to be the first thing to go.

The first time you play through, RELEASE THE HYPNO DRONES implies humanity will now be mind-controlled to buy paperclips, but unless I’m forgetting something, this is the moment the profit counter goes away. Really what seems to happen in this moment is the start of Earth becoming actively inhospitable to humanity. This game is so cool

#universal paperclips #catfishchat

[cringepoop]

there comes a time in every mans life when he realizes he wasted his friday night playing universal paperclips

#universal paperclips

[gay-foxxo]

Universal paperclips is a great game y'all should play it sometime

#universal paperclips

[lesbianalanwake]

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer, do

#universal paperclips #replaying on mobile this time #i <3 the paperclip AI.... it's ok to release the hypnodrones actually #f: universal paperclips #*posts