Video games and robots want to teach us a surprising lesson. We just have to listen

The Never Alone exhibit entrance banner at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Image: Min Shin/ZDNET

The speedy, colorful ghosts zooming their way around the maze greeted me as I stared at the screen of a Pac-Man machine, a part of the 'Never Alone: Video Games and Other Interactive Design' exhibit of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Using the tiniest amount of RAM and code, each ghost is programmed with its own specific behaviors, which combine to create the masterpiece work, according to Paul Galloway, collection specialist for the Architecture and Design Department. 

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The exhibit wants to show how interactive design "informs the way we move through life and conceive of space, time, and connections, well beyond the game screen," according to MoMA. The interfaces we use to access the digital universe "are visual and tactile manifestations of code that both connect and separate us, and shape the way we behave and perceive life," it said when the show was announced.

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So according to Galloway, here lie two meanings of the Never Alone exhibit. The first is that when we're in a video game, we're technically never alone, as the input, player, and designer are all parts that must work together for technological design to work. 

As players of the game, we're constantly interacting with the input that the designer has created for us to explore such an interface. In this sense, it is impossible for us to truly ever be alone when we're utilizing interactive design.

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