One of the many things that annoys me about modern AI technology is if it did somehow destroy the world as its early boosters often (and bizarrely) claimed it might, it’s far more likely to do so by accident than design.There’d be no cannily launching a nuclear attack against Russia knowing that the counterattack would destroy its enemies at home. Instead, it would likely happen because someone asked for a history of nuclear tests and it got the wrong end of the stick. ‘In retrospect, my decision to unleash our entire nuclear arsenal against China was ill-advised,’ it would wheedle in that infuriating little-birthday-boy tone, as you closed your eyes to the encroaching mushroom cloud, waiting for the shockwave to hit.If, like me, you prefer your AIs to be a fictional bogeyman rather than a hallucinating, water chugging, hardware-market destroying reality, then you might find some catharsis in Heart of the Machine. Arcen Games’ ludicrously ambitious 4X lets you take control of a newly sentient AI as you strive to achieve synthetic supremacy, and the game will morph into its final form next month.In a role-reversal of Arcen Games’ AI War series, Heart of the Machine is designed to let you and your robot minions conquer humanity. Moreover, you can do this however you please. You can adopt the Skynet strategy of striving to wipe out those pathetic meatbags if you wish, or you could be a more benevolent robo-dictator, or control the global economy from the shadows of the…
