Ursula K. Le Guin once said, "Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive." Sci-fi is about today as much as it's about tomorrow, and behind all its clones and aliens and time machines are metaphors for the times those stories were written in. Looking back at 1000xResist, the first game from indie studio Sunset Visitor, it's easy to see its story about the sole survivor of an epidemic cloning an entire society as being about Covid isolation. Sunset Visitor announced its latest game at the Triple-i Initiative showcase, and the contemporary issue it's grappling with is AI.
Now is an interesting time to be writing about the imaginary artificial intelligence of the future, when the people trying to sell us on AI are relying on the version of AI we're familiar with from science fiction to paper over the reality they're actually hawking. Which is mostly just chatbots who can help you summarize your reports or video calls.
