Are we ready for the Lavender Game?

Gaming and gamification have been among the most trending concepts in the emerging markets because of the way the brain of the youth population around the world is evolving.

Video games market alone is projected to reach around RO 1 billion globally, and at least RO 300 billion by 2027 based on post-Covid market estimation. While, gaming has been predominantly a benign leisure industry it has taking the darkest turn possible in 2023 due to the ongoing US and EU backed Israeli genocide against Palestine and Palestinians in Gaza.

This war witnessed billions of Riyals investment in infusing three emerging technologies: gaming, artificial intelligence, and military technologies. The result of this has been anything but death and destruction for tens of thousands of lives, led in this case by an evil Ai programme ironically named Lavender, according to an investigative report by a magazine called +972.

We have a chance to recalibrate the three factors driving this violent militarization of young minds; moral ambiguity, automation, and funding.

Moral ambiguity

First and foremost, there is nothing more important today than regaining the trust in universal values, such as social justice. Transitioning from virtual video games to AI powered simulations that autonomously target people in real life based on their background is negatively reinforcing the lack of moral responsibility of people involved in the development and deployment of these systems. It is imperative that we collectively as human beings develop policies that humanise AI decision making in a way that makes it clear to those responsible for their decisions and their accountability.

Automation

Automation in the defense industry has become increasingly more offensive than defensive. While the defense industry is credited for some of humanity’s most benevolent innovations such as penicillin and GPS, we now have smart shooter AI systems that facilitate the indiscriminate bombing of children, women and men in the tens of thousands with impunity.

We cannot let automation lead its own development without more human oversight or this will lead to our extinction. One of the solutions here is to encourage ideation competitions and hackathons that automate time consuming tasks. This will lead to freeing our most precious resource, our time, so that we can dedicate more time to innovating sustainable, collective and individual wellness.

Funding

No market can develop without funding. The ongoing tragic conflicts in Africa, Europe and Palestine are stoking tensions and arms races. This is especially true in the area of drones and AI targeting guiding systems. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of children are struggling to access proper healthcare, and lack opportunities to access education, setting them up for a vicious cycle of disease, poverty and extremism.

There is a bright side to struggles around the world, they remind us of how change is the only constant and that we are evolving thanks to innovations.

A lovely industry dominated by entertaining games such as Super Mario is now dominated by irresponsible AI targeting systems such as Lavender without a real challenge. This is absolutely the right time to encourage every developer, especially the younger generation to get our world ready to take extreme violence completely out of the realm of entertainment. Failure to do so means that sooner or later, you and I will likely be subjected to an AI targeting system without any justification or accountability.