“For Gamers. By Gamers.” That is Razer’s motto. The popular gaming company has just showcased a product that shows it doesn’t seem to care about gamers at all.
Razer’s Project AVA is a new AI assistant that’s usage extends past gaming. Project AVA is not just your friend for play, but for work and life too.
Razer has always been a popular gaming brand, but they came to prominence last year with their new Snap Tap technology, which was a great innovation in gaming at the time, so their newest endeavor into AI has been questionable. In the real world and gaming world, AI has been a controversial topic.
Opinions on AI aside, it’s purely a fact that gamers are shown in an awful light by Razer’s Project AVA. As much as I love the term “gamer,” gamers have a pretty bad reputation. Ever since computer gaming became widespread in the early 2000s, it’s been seen as something only for grown men living in their moms’ basements, perfectly captured by South Park’s “Make Love, Not Warcraft.”
Razer plays into this stereotype with its advertising. In the showcase video for Project AVA, the AI assistant hologram is shown as either a young anime girl for men, and a manly, buff, and tatted-up chad for women. Even looking past the gender stereotypes, the consumers in the ad are calling their AI assistants pet names like “cutie”.
This is more than just your gaming “assistant,” this is your romantic partner for life, not just gaming. One classic stereotype of gamers is the inability to find romantic relationships, and Razer is advertising a product that embodies this stereotype. As a gamer, this feels like betrayal. Razer’s brand has been built from understanding their clientele and looking past the stereotypes that plague them considering that they too are gamers, hence the motto.
Project AVA’s functions are more hand-holding than your average AI assistant as well. AVA is designed to be completely automated, alive almost, to manage and respond to your emails and messages faster than you can. AVA will schedule real-world events and tell you to attend them so you don’t have to worry about remembering it yourself. When at home, AVA will sit on your desk, free to answer any questions and do anything online that you need done. When you leave, AVA will text you and make sure you have 24/7 contact with AVA so everywhere you go, your AI companion is with you every step of the way.
Don’t worry about your house while you’re gone, in some “There Will Come Soft Rains” fashion, AVA will control everything you allow it to from the electronic lights to the electronic lock. No, AVA won’t make you breakfast when you come home from work, but it will order Doordash.
The effects of relying on AI for relationships or business on consumers is detrimental, especially in younger people. For one, it stunts independence and development. It’s not impossible that people who develop alongside an AI like Razer’s do not know how to manage their events and calendar, as one of the showcased abilities is that it tells you whatever you have planned today. If we don’t make mistakes, and our AI is what we depend on for our skills, what are we without it?
Ironically, our seeking of perfection is what makes us ultimately imperfect. Our friends often disappoint, but it’s those mistakes and disappointments that make us human and better than before. If we have AI friends that are perfect, never disappoint, and agree with everything we say, how are we supposed to grow socially? We can’t. That’s the harm of befriending AI. It’s even worse if you decide to romantically love AI. In relationships, both sides are dependent on each other, but with AI, you are dependent on it, but it doesn’t need you at all. That’s unhealthy, even if it was human.
One of the advertised features of Project AVA is the ability to coach you in-game. While the idea of gaming coaches, even AI ones, is not novel at all, the idea of giving your AI trainer a face and a personality is. The problem with current AI coaching is that it feels just as lifeless as receiving tips during the tutorial of a video game. In the esports setting, every little thing counts. If you feel uncomfortable having a lifeless AI correct you on your mistakes, you’re going to play worse. Having a responsive gaming coach with a face and image to correct you is, without a doubt, a better option than one without these features.
If we make the human element just as strong as the actual human elements, what does that mean ethically? Could the art of learning and coaching in esports fade away? Very possibly, yes. So how do we become more efficient with AI, without ruining what originally made the original experience so special? Fortunately, it won’t come down to knowledge. AI as a concept can only know what we know. The best AI coach can only be coached by a human. If AI is more efficient, it’ll be because it is more comfortable and personalized than a human coach, not because it’s objectively better.
At the casual level most gamers would agree that the most beautiful thing about gaming is the process of development and learning a game or skill within a game. Unlike most things in life, everything a gamer learns in a game is self-taught. Yes, games will teach you the very basics of how to use the game, but most games will have a plethora of things that they don’t explain to the player. It’s that process of learning what the game doesn’t teach you that makes gaming feel so good. AI should not ruin the gratifying feeling of learning; However, if used in areas like esports where learning becomes the matter of making millions of dollars and where mastery can take anywhere from months to years, AI is fair game just as coaching is.
Honestly, if Razer’s Project AVA didn’t have features to be my virtual wife and life planner, it would be an innovative and welcome addition to the gaming world. That’s where Razer should stay, the gaming world, not the real world. Razer’s attempts to appeal to the gaming fanbase sadly just make a mockery out of an already scrutinized group that they claimed to be a part of. In the perspective of non-gamers, Project AVA only has the value of being a life coach and dating partner, and worse, makes gamers look like desperate weirdos. This small step for gaming is a giant step for domestic AI usage, all thanks to Razer, a company for gamers by gamers.
