While the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and games far exceeds the parameters that a short review can even sketch out, I hope to propose a series of representational, historical, aesthetic, technical, experimental, and processual ways to approach the intersection between these two terms.
Representations of AI and intelligent robots have been common throughout video game history, ranging from nonplayer to player characters. Some representations of AI antagonists include AM in I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream (Cyberdreams and the Dreamers Guild, 1995), GLaDOS in Portal (Valve, 2007), and P03 in Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games 2021). Depictions of helpful nonplayer AI familiars include Rush in Mega Man 3 (Capcom, 1990), Claptrap in Borderlands (Gearbox Software, 2009), and Nick Valentine in Fallout 4 (Bethesda Game Studios, 2015). Another important category comprises AI player-characters whom a player controls or roleplays as but that do not depend on actual AI systems,...
