Crazy Wisdom
Episode #463: Brave New Playgrounds: Real-World Games in a Post-Trust Era
- creative output
- human connection
- filmmaking
- generative AI
- disassociation
- collaboration
- authorial voice
- embodied experience
About this episode
Timestamps
- 00:55Ben Roper on AI's impact on creative authenticity and the dilution of the author's experience.
- 03:05The discussion on AI leading to a "simulation of experience" versus genuine, embodied experiences.
- 08:40Stewart Alsop explores the nuances of authenticity, honesty, and trust in media and personal interactions.
- 17:53Ben discusses how trust is invaluable and often broken by corporate attempts to feign it.
- 20:22Ben begins to explain the Play Culture project, discussing the community's confusion about its non-monetized approach, leading into his philosophy of "designing for people, not money."
- 37:08Ben elaborates on the Play Culture experience: creating tactical outdoor games designed specifically for adults.
- 45:46A comparison of Play Culture's approach with games like Pokémon GO, emphasizing "gentle technology."
- 58:48Ben shares his thoughts on the future of augmented reality and designing humanistic experiences.
- 1:02:15Ben describes "Pirate Gold," a real-world role-playing pirate simulator, as an example of Play Culture's innovative games.
- 1:06:30How to find Play Culture and get involved in their events worldwide.
Key Insights
- AI and Creative Authenticity: Ben, coming from a filmmaking background, views generative AI as a collaborator without a mind, which disassociates work from the author's unique experience. He believes art's value lies in being a window into an individual's life, a quality diluted by AI's averaged output.
- Simulation vs. Real Experience: We discussed how AI and even some modern technologies offer simulations of experiences (like VR travel or social media connections) that lack the depth and richness of real-world engagement. These simulations can be easier to access but may leave individuals unfulfilled and unaware of what they're missing.
- The Quest for Honesty Over Authenticity: I posited that while people claim to want authenticity, they might actually desire honesty more. Raw, unfiltered authenticity can be confronting, whereas honesty within a framework of trust allows for genuine connection without necessarily exposing every raw emotion.
- Trust as Unpurchasable Value: Ben emphasized that trust is one of the few things that cannot be bought; it must be earned and is easily broken. This makes genuine trust incredibly valuable, especially in a world where corporate entities often feign trustworthiness for transactional purposes.
- Designing for People, Not Money: Ben shared his philosophy behind Play Culture, which is to "design for people, not money." This means prioritizing genuine human experience, joy, and connection over optimizing for profit, believing that true value, including financial sustainability, can arise as a byproduct of creating something meaningful.
- The Need for Adult Play: Play Culture aims to fill a void by creating tactical outdoor games specifically designed for adult minds and social dynamics. This goes beyond childlike play or existing adult games like video games and sports, focusing on socially driven gameplay, strategy, and unique adult experiences.
- Gentle Technology in Gaming: Contrasting with AR-heavy games like Pokémon GO, Play Culture advocates for "gentle technology." The tech (like a mobile app) supports gameplay by providing information or connecting players, but the core interaction happens through players' senses and real-world engagement, not primarily through a screen.
- Real-World Game Streaming as the Future: Ben's vision for Play Culture includes moving towards real-world game streaming, akin to video game streaming on Twitch, but featuring live-action tactical games played in real cities. This aims to create a new genre of entertainment showcasing genuine human interaction and strategy.
Contact Information
Episode transcript
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Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast. I've got Ben Roper here, and he is the CEO and founder of Play Culture. Welcome to the show.
So I ran into your app because someone in a WhatsApp group posted about it, and it seemed like a very, very cool thing. And I've actually had some similar ideas. I was sending people on treasure hunts as a little sort of side quest, which was really fun and excited to talk about the app, but also excited to talk about sort of reservations about AI, because we kind of started a little conversation before that about reservations on AI, but you're also building this app and you've taught yourself how to code, which I would love to just dive into, regardless of AI. But let's. Let's kind of continue that conversation where we were starting about what are some. What are your reservations on AI?
So I am from a filmmaking background, so for about 20 years I've worked in film production, in things like advertising, and eventually towards the end of that, we were pitching for TV work and things like this. So my feelings about AI and the things it triggers in me are obviously going to be more from, like, the creative output standpoint. And so I. I kind of have a feeling that basically. And if you're using generative AI, then you're. It's kind of like collaboration, right? You're almost. It's almost the most similar thing in the human world that that is, is collaborating with another mind, except that there isn't another mind. And so it sort of just disassociates the work that you're producing from the author, in my view. So, yeah, I'm very big on, like, human stuff, human connection, and my interest in art or like any artistic work that you might encounter, whether it's film or. Or an app or anything else that someone might have created. Like, my interest in that is that it's a window into that person's experience and like, everything that they've been through in their life, good or bad or otherwise, has contributed to exactly how that work ended up. So I feel like this kind of disassociation that's in, in my mind happens with AI takes away the main reason that I like interacting with people's work, which is that I'm learning about their experience. Because there isn't an experience, there is just this average output. And if that was like, if that was like a collaboration with another person, then I'm like, okay, great. So now the work is like a combination of the experiences of two people and now I'm learning about two people. But when it's a collaboration with AI, essentially, you know, even if it's like a 5050 collaboration, it's kind of diluted. The reason I would want to know about that work.
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