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sciencepunk | April 5, 2011What games would a robot play? It's a question that struck me last night, and kept me up as I sketched out diagrams for android puzzle toys.
For a start, we have to imagine why a robot would play games. We're not even able to explain why we enjoy them so much. To say that games trigger the reward system in the brain doesn't add anything by way of an explanation. Enjoyment, pleasure, is an atomic building block of behaviour, it's impossible to break it down any further. So why ask why robots would play games when we can't explain our own fascination with them? They just do. We can give…