7 ms·

I played Universal Paperclips until the end, and the game gets more interesting at later stages. Also, this is one of the rarer occasions when playing it once i

I played Universal Paperclips until the end, and the game gets more interesting at later stages. Also, this is one of the rarer occasions when playing it once is enough.

willis936 5y ago
There's a halting problem though. Once could be 10000 hours. At some point everyone snaps out of it and remembers they are not a paperclip producing AI but a human.
- aristidb 5y ago
  The game has an end, and you can get there in a much more reasonable amount of time.
  - willis936 5y ago
    In order to reach that end you need to break character and choose to stop making paperclips. As a human player you always have this choice; you can stop playing anytime. The paperclip AI will always choose to make more paperclips.
    - AndrewDucker 5y ago
      Nope, you can end it by making paperclips. The last button you click, in fact, will be the "Make Paperclip" one.
      - willis936 5y ago
        Can. In order to reach that end you need to break character and choose to stop making paperclips. The Paperclip AI is always propositioned to be able to make more paperclips or to not. Which would they choose?
        AndrewDucker 5y ago
        I replayed it recently. Fairly sure that I just had to choose to not come to terms with my enemies and then to continue turning things into paperclips.
        willis936 5y ago
        Which is you, the human player, choosing to stop making paperclips. The AI is presented with an opportunity to make infinitely more paperclips.
        ctdonath 5y ago
        But then you don’t make everything into clips. The pressure to finish this job is palatable.
        dllthomas 5y ago
        ... for a human. I think this is still anthropomorphism.
        dllthomas 5y ago
        Infinite virtual paperclips, which may or may not satisfy the AI's utility function.
        rytill 5y ago
        Why are you so confident in this hypothesis? Did you create the game? It is not at all clear that every hypothetical AGI would do as you say. It’s fiction. Anything can happen. In fact, this AGI almost definitely wouldn’t accept the simulation offer. Otherwise our protagonist would have been making simulations and resetting them instead of doing the hard work of turning the actual universe into paperclips.
        dllthomas 5y ago
        If it was in it for the experience of making the paperclips, it also seems like probes isn't a way to achieve that.
    - mrob 5y ago
      You can convert the entire universe into paperclips and reach the end credits in a few hours. The start of the game can be sped up by setting your keyboard autorepeat to maximum and pressing buttons by holding down enter.
    - asoneth 5y ago
      I think everyone here is trying to avoid spoilers while conveying that there is more to the game than you think initially. (You may already know that from reading the article or playing the game, but it's not clear from your comment.)
      - willis936 5y ago
        I think everyone here is either misreading my comments or misremembering the end of the game.
        asoneth 5y ago
        > everyone here is either misreading my comments I suspect I misread your comment in that case, so I apologize. Though if everyone else did as well, perhaps the comment was ambiguous? > or misremembering the end of the game. Exactly, there is a point that is pretty clearly "the end of the game". The fact that one can continue playing after that point doesn't make it less of an ending.
        willis936 5y ago
        My comments are not ambiguously worded. They are made concise so my point can't be missed, yet it still is because readers are mistaking conciseness for lack of understanding. The end of the game is something a human player reaches and is satisfied with their work. A paperclip producing AI would not choose a path that results in no more paperclips being made.
        eru 5y ago
        Depends on how the AI was programmed. If it got the goal to make as many paperclips in this universe, the game can end in-universe as well.
        asoneth 5y ago
        If many people misinterpret a piece of writing or miss its point then that seems like it is empirically "ambiguously worded", regardless of how clear it seemed to you. (You are of course free to think and write how you please, but attributing all comprehension errors to readers may limit the reach of your writing.)
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
riidom 5y ago
I replayed it several times actually. Then I cleaned up my local storage without thinking about this game, deleting all my universe/sim count.. and was off the hook afterwards :) Not regretting it though!
- rplnt 5y ago
  I played it twice. Once I knew what to do it was pretty easy. Some things seemed like dead ends with no purpose. For example I launched only one probe to win. Very interesting in a way it display the concept of rogue wasy AI can select for best strategies to reach its goal, but the gameplay wasn't that polished.
  - yojo 5y ago
    You could win with one probe, but that’s not “optimal” if you’re trying to get your time down. Game design seemed pretty solid to me, for what it is. The game is basically trying to reverse engineer a spreadsheet, but it seems like a well thought out spreadsheet.
riffraff 5y ago
I think it's worth playing it at least twice, to see both endings
alostpuppy 5y ago
Once every few years I tank office productivity by sharing this out. My small way to fight late stage capitalism. ;)
yojo 5y ago
> Also, this is one of the rarer occasions when playing it once is enough. Depends on how hard it nerd snipes you. My first play through started with “ooh, clever” and ended with “now that I understand it how fast can I beat it?”
Benjammer 5y ago
If you want to make it interesting again after playing through it once, you could try using a user script plugin (like Tampermonkey) to automate the game.

I played Universal Paperclips until the end, and the game gets more interesting at later stages. Also, this is one of the rarer occasions when playing it once is enough.

willis936 5y ago

There's a halting problem though. Once could be 10000 hours. At some point everyone snaps out of it and remembers they are not a paperclip producing AI but a human.

aristidb 5y ago
The game has an end, and you can get there in a much more reasonable amount of time.
- willis936 5y ago
  In order to reach that end you need to break character and choose to stop making paperclips. As a human player you always have this choice; you can stop playing anytime. The paperclip AI will always choose to make more paperclips.
  - AndrewDucker 5y ago
    Nope, you can end it by making paperclips. The last button you click, in fact, will be the "Make Paperclip" one.
    - willis936 5y ago
      Can. In order to reach that end you need to break character and choose to stop making paperclips. The Paperclip AI is always propositioned to be able to make more paperclips or to not. Which would they choose?
      - AndrewDucker 5y ago
        I replayed it recently. Fairly sure that I just had to choose to not come to terms with my enemies and then to continue turning things into paperclips.
        willis936 5y ago
        Which is you, the human player, choosing to stop making paperclips. The AI is presented with an opportunity to make infinitely more paperclips.
        ctdonath 5y ago
        But then you don’t make everything into clips. The pressure to finish this job is palatable.
        dllthomas 5y ago
        ... for a human. I think this is still anthropomorphism.
        dllthomas 5y ago
        Infinite virtual paperclips, which may or may not satisfy the AI's utility function.
        rytill 5y ago
        Why are you so confident in this hypothesis? Did you create the game? It is not at all clear that every hypothetical AGI would do as you say. It’s fiction. Anything can happen. In fact, this AGI almost definitely wouldn’t accept the simulation offer. Otherwise our protagonist would have been making simulations and resetting them instead of doing the hard work of turning the actual universe into paperclips.
        dllthomas 5y ago
        If it was in it for the experience of making the paperclips, it also seems like probes isn't a way to achieve that.
  - mrob 5y ago
    You can convert the entire universe into paperclips and reach the end credits in a few hours. The start of the game can be sped up by setting your keyboard autorepeat to maximum and pressing buttons by holding down enter.
  - asoneth 5y ago
    I think everyone here is trying to avoid spoilers while conveying that there is more to the game than you think initially. (You may already know that from reading the article or playing the game, but it's not clear from your comment.)
    - willis936 5y ago
      I think everyone here is either misreading my comments or misremembering the end of the game.
      - asoneth 5y ago
        > everyone here is either misreading my comments I suspect I misread your comment in that case, so I apologize. Though if everyone else did as well, perhaps the comment was ambiguous? > or misremembering the end of the game. Exactly, there is a point that is pretty clearly "the end of the game". The fact that one can continue playing after that point doesn't make it less of an ending.
        willis936 5y ago
        My comments are not ambiguously worded. They are made concise so my point can't be missed, yet it still is because readers are mistaking conciseness for lack of understanding. The end of the game is something a human player reaches and is satisfied with their work. A paperclip producing AI would not choose a path that results in no more paperclips being made.
        eru 5y ago
        Depends on how the AI was programmed. If it got the goal to make as many paperclips in this universe, the game can end in-universe as well.
        asoneth 5y ago
        If many people misinterpret a piece of writing or miss its point then that seems like it is empirically "ambiguously worded", regardless of how clear it seemed to you. (You are of course free to think and write how you please, but attributing all comprehension errors to readers may limit the reach of your writing.)
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

riidom 5y ago

I replayed it several times actually. Then I cleaned up my local storage without thinking about this game, deleting all my universe/sim count.. and was off the hook afterwards :) Not regretting it though!

rplnt 5y ago
I played it twice. Once I knew what to do it was pretty easy. Some things seemed like dead ends with no purpose. For example I launched only one probe to win. Very interesting in a way it display the concept of rogue wasy AI can select for best strategies to reach its goal, but the gameplay wasn't that polished.
- yojo 5y ago
  You could win with one probe, but that’s not “optimal” if you’re trying to get your time down. Game design seemed pretty solid to me, for what it is. The game is basically trying to reverse engineer a spreadsheet, but it seems like a well thought out spreadsheet.

riffraff 5y ago

I think it's worth playing it at least twice, to see both endings

alostpuppy 5y ago

Once every few years I tank office productivity by sharing this out. My small way to fight late stage capitalism. ;)

yojo 5y ago

> Also, this is one of the rarer occasions when playing it once is enough. Depends on how hard it nerd snipes you. My first play through started with “ooh, clever” and ended with “now that I understand it how fast can I beat it?”

Benjammer 5y ago

If you want to make it interesting again after playing through it once, you could try using a user script plugin (like Tampermonkey) to automate the game.