Letter: Letters: Virtual parody

From BRUCE ANDERSON

I must protest about your editorial ‘Virtual panic at Santa’s grotto’
(Comment, 19/26 December). That video games are training the youth of today
in scientific skills is ludicrous, for they present a parody of the world,
and a parody of our ways of interacting with it. There is no mystery, only
secrecy, and the universe presented may be tricky but is ultimately defined
and algorithmic: ‘There is a God, and he’s a hacker.’ They may help motor
skills, but they are disconnected and antisocial, presenting an illusion
of control in the world by presenting control in an illusion of the world.

The more complex games reduce complex social situations to vectors of
properties, taking a few steps down the ever-steepening slippery slope which
artificial intelligence disappeared down some years ago.

The limited mechanical thinking that these games encourage, no matter
how skilful, is useful in only a tiny part of the scientific and technical
enterprise. Where is the dialogue with the situation? Where is the dialogue
with the other protagonists? Where is the dialogue with other scientists
or technologists? Where is the place for creativity?

This distanced and mechanical view of the world is disquieting for science
but a disaster for technology, where machines are a vehicle for interactions
between people.

Bruce Anderson University of Essex