Playing with Reality - How Games Shape Our World

We play games to learn about the world, to understand our minds and the minds of others, and to make predictions about the future. They''re also a lot of fun. But what happens when we mistake games for reality?

WIN OR LOSE explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, biology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology, and the future of democracy. As neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows us, games have been deeply intertwined with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behavior and brought us to the brink of annihilation-yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics, and technology. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy.

Lucid, thought-provoking, and masterfully told, WIN OR LOSE makes the bold argument that the human fascination with games is the key to understanding our nature.<>

About the author

Kelly Clancy, PhD, is a neuroscientist and physicist who has held research positions at MIT, Berkeley, University College London, and DeepMind. She develops novel brain-computer interfaces with the aim of understanding the principles of intelligence. Her writing has appeared in Wired, Harper's and the New Yorker. She spent her childhood being repeatedly murdered by her sisters in the video game GoldenEye 007.

Product details

• Authors: Kelly Clancy
• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 09.05.2024
• EAN: 9780241545508
• ISBN: 978-0-241-54550-8
• No. of pages: 368
• Dimensions: 162 mm x 242 mm x 34 mm
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Natural sciences (general); Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; History of Ideas, popular science, SCIENCE / History, SCIENCE / Life Sciences / Neuroscience, SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects, MATHEMATICS / Game Theory, TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Social Aspects, Philosophy of Science, Neurosciences, game theory, Role-playing, war games and fantasy sports