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Is killing videogame characters immoral?
- Thread starter njean777
- Start date
Just reading that first answer he gives gives you all the understanding you need. This is about level of ethical response required. Right now there is pretty much zero concern, but it's plausible that one day there could be some. My personal take is that "one day" is a long fucking time from now.
Crash Station
Member
In that case, couldn't an argument be made that games were an outlet, potentially combatting real world crime? Better the pixels than actual people.
Iorv3th
Member
It is not immoral itself to kill another human being in real life from a philosophical standpoint, depending on who you are studying and the situation.
In a world that is not bound by the same rules as us and which no morals exist at all, killing is not immoral as morals do not exist.
In a world that is not bound by the same rules as us and which no morals exist at all, killing is not immoral as morals do not exist.
That is exactly what he's arguing: that this collection of code that a video game NPC represents can be "harmed" if it were to achieve the degree of sentience required by a moral agent.
Opinionatedfish
Member
If it is Sonic, we could think of it as a mercy killing. In video games, no, the video games themselves have their own moral codes that they operate off of.
But let's be honest here. We are all streams of data ourselves Our entire personalities, morals, and existence is just variable electrical currents running through our brains. A sharp blow or degradation in those circuits changes our personalities. Anyone who has ever lived or loved someone with a mental injury like a Stroke knows how fragile that data is.
If I were a developer, just to mess with people, I would have a variable line of dialogue where an enemy in the game has a 1/1,000,000 chance of suddenly turning away from the character and starting up a weirdly self aware dialog about being suddenly aware and alive. If you jump on them they start yelling and whining about the pain. They don't blink out of existence, instead, they go into a death throe about how they don't understand why they must be killed before finally blinking out of existence.
That said, I have to applaud developers when they make you pause a bit when you're killing something. Example: Resident Evil Revelations for the 3DS has a ton of dialog for two of it's bosses
that consists of gems like:
When wearing headphones through that game.. umm. damn. One of the best 3DS titles ever and the best Resident Evil game I've played in a long time.
But let's be honest here. We are all streams of data ourselves Our entire personalities, morals, and existence is just variable electrical currents running through our brains. A sharp blow or degradation in those circuits changes our personalities. Anyone who has ever lived or loved someone with a mental injury like a Stroke knows how fragile that data is.
If I were a developer, just to mess with people, I would have a variable line of dialogue where an enemy in the game has a 1/1,000,000 chance of suddenly turning away from the character and starting up a weirdly self aware dialog about being suddenly aware and alive. If you jump on them they start yelling and whining about the pain. They don't blink out of existence, instead, they go into a death throe about how they don't understand why they must be killed before finally blinking out of existence.
That said, I have to applaud developers when they make you pause a bit when you're killing something. Example: Resident Evil Revelations for the 3DS has a ton of dialog for two of it's bosses
Rachel and the Communications Officer
"It HURTS. Stop. I'm HUMAN. I'm STILL HUMAN. NO! Don't kill me! Why are you hurting me?"
Again, I think scale and closeness have a lot to do with it. There were quite a few people who felt pretty bad about killing the colossi in Shadow of the Colossus, as an example. Even the Game Grumps talk about this a bit in their videos of the game.
I think he's arguing more about what degree of sentience is close enough for us to be uncomfortable about it, or its presentation. Most people don't really think that harming an ant is of consequence, but some do.
Actually, looking at his argument more, I would say no, it's not immoral now.
Now when they program AI to be able to think for itself that it can develop new fears or thoughts outside of what it is programmed and can do stuff outside its programming, I'll start worrying about whether it is immoral. But right now AI for games from what I know can only react to what it's programmed to react to. It hasn't shown itself to be able to create its own programming, rather to be able to form thoughts and fears of its own. And it can't feel for sure.
Basically the guy is trying to argue AI in games is complicated enough to be considered alive. I would argue it is not because the AI still just follows its programming and cannot think for it self.
Now when they program AI to be able to think for itself that it can develop new fears or thoughts outside of what it is programmed and can do stuff outside its programming, I'll start worrying about whether it is immoral. But right now AI for games from what I know can only react to what it's programmed to react to. It hasn't shown itself to be able to create its own programming, rather to be able to form thoughts and fears of its own. And it can't feel for sure.
Basically the guy is trying to argue AI in games is complicated enough to be considered alive. I would argue it is not because the AI still just follows its programming and cannot think for it self.
Cymbal Head
Banned
When I find a bug in my apartment or office, I try my best to scoop it up and put it outside rather than killing it.
After it rains, I pay attention to where on the sidewalk I'm stepping in order to avoid squishing earthworms.
In Saint's Row, I kill pedestrians with glee.
How much more self-aware is an earthworm than an NPC in a game?
After it rains, I pay attention to where on the sidewalk I'm stepping in order to avoid squishing earthworms.
In Saint's Row, I kill pedestrians with glee.
How much more self-aware is an earthworm than an NPC in a game?
That is a pretty interesting question actually, it reminds me of a thought-provoking segment from Opie and Anthony actually.
Anthony confessed that sometimes he has dreams in which he rapes women. Here is the interesting part though; he said that he found a tell for when he was dreaming, (he would look out the window and make a "fear face". and if monsters came at him, he knew he was dreaming) and when he realised he was dreaming, he would only want to do two things, fly and "dreamy rape" as he called it.
One of the producers on the show claimed that he was in fact immoral not necessarily because he was partaking in dreamy rape, but because he was partaking in dreamy rape in lucid dreams. The producer argued this meant if there were no laws against rape, Anthony would be a real life rapist. Anthony argued that because it's a dream and he actually wasn't causing harm to anyone, it was absurd to bring morality into it.
Now this is no different from playing video games where you can cause harm to people, but I have a feeling people might see it differently. I'm interested as to some of the reason people might give.
In any case, I don't see either as immoral. What are your thoughts?
Or alternatively that it's a process for discussing ideas.
That aside, my take on this is 'Not yet' - although it'd be interesting to see how a conscious & sentient AI might perceive the mass-slaughter of its country cousins.
When I game I often choose the bad/evil path, just as I frequently identify with amoral characters in literature & their actions, e.g. in American Psycho the only two murders I felt affected by were
the tramp (and then I felt more for his dog when Bateman breaks its legs) and Bethany because AFAIC she was the only character who didn't deserve to die
I agree with Anthony. What you do in your head is seperate from the actions you actually carry through. As long as you aren't harming anyone, it's not immoral. And I don't think I would argue that because his dreams were lucid means that even if there weren't laws he would actually rape some one. Because, he may very well agree you shouldn't actually harm some one but knows that in a dream you are harming no one (producers logic is wrong).
For some reason I feel like this explains a lot of the behavior of people online.
I like Idea channel, I don't subscribe to it but I do like their videos, so yeah I always kinda thought that "Fictional" worlds are just worlds that exist already but we view them as movies and such. Kinda like the ideas that we get about stories, games and other things are just peaks into other dimensions or something of the sort.
I mean we could be viewed as a story right now by another dimension or thing and we wouldn't really know for certain.
But did they suffer? The Colossi, I mean?
Yea, as much of a self-admitted scumbag he is at times, even he isn't in favour of raping people.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
In an objective measure of creating greater suffering in the universe, it is infinitely more immoral for your lymphocytes to be slaughtering microbes right now than it is for you to kill something that exists only in your mind.
Even if you considered it perverse to enjoy manipulating variables in a way which creates the illusion of actually destroying things, on a fundamental level it is nothing but information, and in the vast majority of all video games ever created, it is information that is not lost. A simulated destructive act and the thing therein destroyed can be recreated at a moment's notice.
Play is a natural creative endeavor and provides the ability for mammals to develop skills in a safe environment they will later use for survival. No one would say that two big cat cubs roughhousing is immoral in of itself, and I don't imagine many would argue it is immoral because they will go on to use those skills to kill prey and compete for mates.
The difference is of course that it's not real, and in the case of a video game, it's even less real. This is like asking if it's immoral to punch a stuffed animal. It may be somewhat indicative of someone's potentially problematic latent desires, and in the mind of someone who is incapable of differentiating between reality and fantasy it's as likely to be hazardous as it is not to be, but no, it's not intrinsically an immoral act.
We have evolved brains that are capable of intricate pattern recognition, and we see things that aren't there all the time. Emergent systems have great emotional resonance for us, as in a sense we ourselves are emergent systems. But that helps us to be fooled by our senses into seeing things that aren't there all the time, just because our brains have good ideas about how to make sense of the information they receive. Objectively, the act of playing a video game is nothing more than someone utilizing photons of information to make educated decisions on how to react and interact with a piece of electronics in a way which for perfectly natural biological reasons they find satisfying and pleasurable.
Even if you considered it perverse to enjoy manipulating variables in a way which creates the illusion of actually destroying things, on a fundamental level it is nothing but information, and in the vast majority of all video games ever created, it is information that is not lost. A simulated destructive act and the thing therein destroyed can be recreated at a moment's notice.
Play is a natural creative endeavor and provides the ability for mammals to develop skills in a safe environment they will later use for survival. No one would say that two big cat cubs roughhousing is immoral in of itself, and I don't imagine many would argue it is immoral because they will go on to use those skills to kill prey and compete for mates.
The difference is of course that it's not real, and in the case of a video game, it's even less real. This is like asking if it's immoral to punch a stuffed animal. It may be somewhat indicative of someone's potentially problematic latent desires, and in the mind of someone who is incapable of differentiating between reality and fantasy it's as likely to be hazardous as it is not to be, but no, it's not intrinsically an immoral act.
We have evolved brains that are capable of intricate pattern recognition, and we see things that aren't there all the time. Emergent systems have great emotional resonance for us, as in a sense we ourselves are emergent systems. But that helps us to be fooled by our senses into seeing things that aren't there all the time, just because our brains have good ideas about how to make sense of the information they receive. Objectively, the act of playing a video game is nothing more than someone utilizing photons of information to make educated decisions on how to react and interact with a piece of electronics in a way which for perfectly natural biological reasons they find satisfying and pleasurable.
I don't know. I think the question is, why would you feel bad if you didn't associate some kind of emotion towards them? Again, it's like asking if an ant suffers when it gets squished. I think a series like Silver Spoon raises some interesting quandaries about killing animals and eating them (particularly in that watching an animal get slaughtered oftentimes makes people sick and not necessarily want to eat animals after viewing it so closely--it's not a pretty process, and yet most people after a certain amount of time still choose to eat animals after watching it).
Unstructured play is vastly different from the structured, rule-bound play of videogames.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
Well, now we're going somewhere else I think. You can very well be playing a character in a fake story who is performing an act you understand is immoral, and because of your understanding of this it may create uncomfortable dissonance for you as the player. You may be playing a character doing something which you would see as completely justified but which by the rules of the fake universe they inhabit they have performed an unspeakable act. But in neither case have you yourself committed an immoral act.
I guess I don't see this as any different from daydreaming. You may look at a building and wonder what it's like to jump off of it. One day you may come across a game which simulates that experience for you. In both cases, you haven't actually jumped off of the building.
Most of have moral sensors build into our brains, including a self preservation one which can conflict with the moral one. Basically we make decisions on what can benefit us in the long and short term.
When we don't have any personal connection with a video game character, for example a cannon fodder generic NPC our decision is based on rational: Kill this enemy for exp, get rewarded.
When we have a more personal involvement with a character, even if that character is a prick emotion starts conflicting with rationale.
That's why writers try and form a strong bond between the good and bad character, so that even in a scenario where the good guy points his gun at the bad guy sitting on his knees, a part of your brain will go against shooting the bad guy.
Even though you killed his minions in the hundreds...
When we don't have any personal connection with a video game character, for example a cannon fodder generic NPC our decision is based on rational: Kill this enemy for exp, get rewarded.
When we have a more personal involvement with a character, even if that character is a prick emotion starts conflicting with rationale.
That's why writers try and form a strong bond between the good and bad character, so that even in a scenario where the good guy points his gun at the bad guy sitting on his knees, a part of your brain will go against shooting the bad guy.
Even though you killed his minions in the hundreds...
tokyo slim
Banned
What's being asked in tokkun's post is that there is no universally accepted definition of "morality" therefore one would have to know what specific philosophy the original post was referencing in order to adequately begin to contemplate the question. He wasn't being rude, it's just that the original post doesn't give us enough information to even begin contemplating an actual answer.
Now, obviously - we could assume that we are to apply our own personal philosophies to the question. But then it becomes a question not about video game characters, but about our personal ethics. As something of a Spinozist, my answer to the question is no. I do not believe any action is inherently good or evil, and is more or less observed as so only through an imperfect human understanding of the situation. (Spinoza probably turns in his grave at my sloppy distillation of his philosophy, sorry!)
Twilight Gap
Member
No, but teabagging afterwards is.
MetroidPrimeRib
Banned
Only Solaire
In this case, I would agree that Anthony is doing an immoral act. Because he realizes he is dreaming, and is choosing to "rape" in his dream. This would mean that he enjoys the act of rape. As in, the person he is having sex with would have to be against it in order for it to be rape. In his lucid dream, he could have chosen "Sex" instead of "Rape". Sex, as in, doing it with someone would actually wants to do it with him. By choosing rape over sex, the act automatically becomes immoral and it does brings up questions as to his mindset.
That said, I agree that this doesn't mean that he would rape someone in real life. Because regardless of the morality of the dream-scenario, and regardless of the fact that he does enjoy rape and chooses it over sex, the real world is SO different that it's incredibly easy to believe he would never rape someone in real life. Not just because of the consequences, but also because someone who enjoys immoral acts in non-real situations might not actually be psychotic enough to have the stomach to do them in real life.
It's like the arguments that so much violence in the media desensitizes us to real world violence. For most normal people, this just isn't true at all. Most people have become desensitized to fake violence, but not real violence. I've killed thousands or millions of people in video games, seen people die in movies, read about it in books, etc. And yet, when somebody posts a video online of real violence, I don't watch them, because they terrify me and I don't have the stomach for it.
And to the actual topic... No. "Killing" code is not immoral.
There are a lot of vectors here, macro and micro (macro largely leads to an argument of capital and if there is a political statement to be had in the purchasing of a particular game, but I'll avoid that), but I'm going to address the micro primarily.
From a micro standpoint, I don't really think that videogames contain play, or if they contain play it is rather like a stage play rather than the informal, unstructured play most imagine play in a videogame to be. The rules of the videogame a player inhabits necessitate limitations to actions, much like the frame of a photo or the stage of a theater. That reality takes on a surreal experience but it still has rules and thus has definitional constructs. Whether or not they are moral is up to the individual, but the game itself certainly has a highly structured sense of what is right and what is wrong, all the way up to the game over screen. Killing in a game may be presented as an amoral choice in that a given game doesn't see anything wrong with it or even encourages it, but that's a construct the game is placing upon the player. Killing may not be seen morally as a result (given that it is a construct versus a presentation of choice), but it is certainly something the game is encouraging.
This is highly tangential though, I agree.
UncleSporky
Member
Characters in other fiction do not perform actions according to programmed behavior, they have no will to survive. If you read the book again, they won't react differently. It's a story vs. a set of electrical impulses acting in real time to try to survive. You could compare it mentally to an actual insect.
But we know for a fact that they don't pop out safe. When you kill an enemy their set of data is deleted from the structure, or otherwise cleaned/replaced with new data that has no knowledge of its past existence. Enemies that you kill literally disappear.
However, if you load the next level and they despawn, the same process is happening there. When you win the game and it goes back to the title screen, everybody dies, through no real fault of your own...it's something that has to happen to free up your RAM again for other applications. Nothing personal.
twisteddeeds
Member
I don't consider killing a construct designed and implemented into a form of entertainment just to be killed, morally wrong
ComputerMKII
Banned
Oh, Vox. What a garbage site.
Fine Ham Abounds
Member
I would consider structured play to still be play. It's just that play with rules makes a game, unstructured play is, well, roughhousing or what-not. This actually leads us I think more back into the realm of the definition of a game more than a value judgement of a game's content.
Another thing to consider is that game rules are almost necessarily binary and most real world morality judgements aren't. How does a moral choice really correlate to a choice in a game? Are consequences really the only things we consider? I'd say no, as most people have different and very personal value judgements that keep them from performing certain acts regardless of the consequences, and still other people wouldn't commit them because they understand that not all consequences are obvious in the real world. Game choices rarely involve more than a decision between one path of content and another, and game rules rarely involve more than what distinguishes the difference between a fail state and success. In order for something to be immoral in the sense of a game's rules, the only things that I can imagine qualifying would then be cheating, or rejecting success and embracing failure completely, which would pretty much mean just never finishing the game.
In that sense, a great many people on GAF are highly immoral game players, as we spend more time discussing games than finishing them.
Not immoral when they're immortal.
The data will always exist. Spawn? [Y] [N] Jump, smash, shoot, swipe them off the grid, doesn't matter, they become temporarily hidden. It's either 1 or zero, but zero is still data and takes up memory! It still takes up space. Their character model? it's 50MB on the disc, always there. Next time you boot up the game; the same question will be asked: Spawn? [Y] [N]
bytes and data, man...
ones and ohs...
on and off..
alive or dead.
The data will always exist. Spawn? [Y] [N] Jump, smash, shoot, swipe them off the grid, doesn't matter, they become temporarily hidden. It's either 1 or zero, but zero is still data and takes up memory! It still takes up space. Their character model? it's 50MB on the disc, always there. Next time you boot up the game; the same question will be asked: Spawn? [Y] [N]
bytes and data, man...
ones and ohs...
on and off..
alive or dead.
Weltall Zero
Member
To determine whether it is immoral or not, first we need to determine "morality"; since everyone has different moral rules, the very concept of morality is a subjective construct. It follows that for some people it will be an immoral act, and for others it won't, for no other and no less arbitrary reason than because they believe so.
Wow, I had never read this before in a thread about violence in videogames! My mind is blown!
Wow, I had never read this before in a thread about violence in videogames! My mind is blown!
rudieboy77
Member
There is some thought in Buddhism and in the Gnostic gospels where a phrase is attributed to Jesus as saying, that even thinking an action is the same as doing it.
Screaming Meat
Unconfirmed Member
So, like, when I turn my console off am I actually obliterating a whole other parallel reality? Does that parallel reality go through the digital equivalent of something like universal heat-death (or whatever it's called)?
FriedConsole
Banned
Philosophers say the same stupid shit as stoners. Philosophers just use a bigger vocabulary.
UncleSporky
Member
Everything's view of its own existence is defined by the interactions of electrical impulses. What does it matter if they take place in a body of flesh or silicon?
Let's say you consider stomping on an insect to be slightly immoral, because it wasn't doing anything, just minding its own business, and it generally seeks to promote its own continued existence. Don't kill it for no reason, right?
What happens when we duplicate its simple consciousness within a computer? Y'know, feed its tiny brain a bitmap of visual information from a webcam, etc. It has algorithms to try to avoid being killed. Put your hand up to the webcam and its subroutines race to try to determine the best course of action to avoid that huge, looming thing.
What makes that virtual insect brain less bad to terminate? It also just wanted to live.
I think it's the opposite. Philosophical theories seem stupid when expressed in overly simplistic terms.
tokyo slim
Banned
The major difference is that philosophy is tested through rational argument and stoners often cannot form one.
UnholySpectacle
Member
Don't read unless you have finished the last book.
I kind of see it, but it seems like a stretch to equate the two mediums since we as the reader are passive. He talks about things being ethically relevant or if they have purpose or not in interacting with NPCs. Roland's only purpose is to get to the tower and sound the horn. Since he did not have the horn the first time, everything gets reset like a video game checkpoint. No matter what, we know Roland will let his friends die to achieve his goal. I doubt anything would be different except now he has the horn. BTW, FU King for writing such a good series with a crappy ending. I wanted to know what was at the top for Roland.
UncleSporky
Member
such immoral
much war
Not programmed to act of their own accord, pursuing goals and attempting to stay alive.
Aaaand there's the Androids reference. You, sir, are a scholar and a gentleman.
Rentahamster
Rodent Whores
We mortals are but ones and zeroes. Ones and zeroes, M4><1mu$!
The catholic notion of sin includes that. All sin, as an act, is either of omission or commission, in thought, word, or deed.
