Beyond the Binary: How AI Teaches Us to Play Again

This article by Imwen Eke, play alchemist, creative technologist, facilitator, educator and TEDx speaker, is one of a series commissioned as part of MyWorld, a UKRI-funded project that explores the future of creative technology innovation by pioneering new ideas, products and processes in the West of England. We have commissioned writers, academics, creators and makers to contribute a written snapshot into how artificial intelligence is changing, enhancing and challenging creative writing and publishing practices.  

AI is often framed as a threat or a tool. Something that will either take over our jobs or help us work faster. But what if we shift the lens entirely? What if AI isn’t just here to assist us in writing stories, but to help us learn how to play again?

We are in the eye of a massive shift. AI is changing how we write, play and imagine. Rather than see it as a threat to creativity, I see it as a mirror and a co-creator. In my work as a play alchemist and facilitator, I don’t separate writing from play. Writing in games isn’t always words and narrative, it’s systems, mechanics and the emotions we design for players to feel, recognise and understand. AI, too, is a system that learns through interaction, through data, through inputs, through play. And that has radical implications.

In 2019, AI Dungeon made headlines for allowing players to co-create text adventures in real-time. But beneath the thrill of infinite storytelling, something unexpected emerged. The AI wasn’t just following instructions, it was inventing its own logic, leading to highly offensive and harmful narratives including sexual assault and child abuse themes. Players weren’t just playing the game. They were co-writing it, training the AI. Their human choices became data, the AI echoed back not only the stories players wanted but also their biases, fears and desires, exposing the risks when left unchecked. It raised critical questions: who shapes these narratives? Who is responsible for what emerges?

That’s the paradox: AI learns with us, in real-time. Like a child navigating a playground for the first time, it imitates, adapts and evolves. But what it learns depends on what we teach it, consciously or not.

What excites me isn’t AI as a replacement for writers or designers, but as a co-creative partner. Imagine AI that could recognise group dynamics in physical space, support facilitators in shaping inclusive play environments, or adapt in real-time to how people move, speak, hesitate, lead or follow.

In my game, Cognition, an interactive voting game recently featured at the G20 in Brazil, players traverse real world ethical dilemmas through social cognition, experiencing the weight of ethics, empathy, and personal values and how these influence collective decision-making becoming vehicles for understanding power, advocacy and dissent. Imagine AI that could support this kind of embodied storytelling, learning the nuances of collective movement and ethical decision-making through play.

This is not about tech optimism or tech fear. It’s about tech literacy and play literacy. Play is how we explore the world, test possibilities, and learn. AI is inherently generative, but so are we. We’re both learning to learn with each other.

AI is reintroducing us to the mechanics of play: trial and error, rule-bending, discovery, co-authorship. This isn’t about automation, it’s about the return of improvisation, expanding how we co-create meaning through interaction and play. But we must remain critically aware: AI is not neutral. It’s trained on datasets shaped by human bias and built upon invisible labor, low-wage workers tagging datasets and infrastructures that carry environmental and ethical costs. We can’t be enchanted by “the cloud” without acknowledging the bodies and resources that make it possible. We need more creators, designers and data scientists from historically excluded groups guiding this evolution because AI isn’t just a technical tool, it’s a cultural one.

As we design with AI, I believe the most radical act is to centre play as a method, a mindset and a politics. Not just writing dialogue but designing systems where stories emerge dynamically.

So I’ll leave you with a provocation. What if AI’s greatest gift isn’t what it can create but how it teaches us to play differently?