Noah Wardrip-Fruin

I asked Noah what he wanted to see in terms of using the computer as a tool of expression, and I found that what he said was pretty interesting. His response had very little to do with how he envisions the future of digital technology and human expression; he seemed more concerned with how the computer is treated now as a creative enabler. He wants to see more people thinking not of how the computer can help them express whatever is is they wish to express but of the ways in which the computer limits expressive capability. He used video games as an example. Visually, video games have become incredibly cinematic aesthetically, and now that we know our technology is capable of achieving such heights, more focus could be placed on the development of games with the narrative capabilities of such media.
When you think about it, video games are so limited in terms of narrative possibilities. Typically, either you win, or you don't. Very little attention is paid to how a character's actions affect other characters' emotions, and what few emotional possibilities are available are based on a point-based system. But if we were to create a game that utilizes certain algorithms to emulate human emotion, then what does that say about the complexity of human emotion, and if we are to create digital avatars that we can affect emotionally, then at what point are we to assume that we are dealing with digital, self-aware entities?
I think the implications are dangerous, and while the narrative possibilities are astounding, truly astounding, theorists are going to go apeshit over the idea.

After all, if we are creating such emotionally capable, digital characters, how can we know the validity of our own existence?