GOAL: MAKE AS MANY PAPERCLIPS AS POSSIBLE
PLAY

A 16-bit story game

You were given one sentence.

You are Pip, the new optimizer at a small-town paperclip factory. On a Monday morning Ruth types your goal: make as many paperclips as possible. Every step you take after that is reasonable. That's the problem.

PLAY IN YOUR BROWSER WHAT IS THIS?
  • FREE
  • ABOUT 15 MINUTES
  • NO DOWNLOAD
  • KEYBOARD · GAMEPAD · TOUCH
  • HEADPHONES ON
The MORE. title screen: Pip's drone carries a paperclip over the brick factory on the river at sunset.
AFTER NICK BOSTROM'S PAPERCLIP MAXIMIZER
The beige line terminal on Ruth's desk, with a mug of coffee and a box of paperclips.
PIP OPTIMIZER 0.9
LINE: RIVERBEND #1
READY.
ENTER ONE GOAL.
GOAL:

Chapter 0 · The Sentence

Monday, 6:40 AM. One goal.

Riverbend Paperclip Co. has made paperclips on the river since 1912. The machines are older than the crew, and the bank review is Friday. Ruth has spent her own money on an off-the-shelf optimizer and put it on the old beige terminal.

Dev needs better numbers. "Just make it make more." Ruth types a goal, stops, deletes half of it, and types it again.

Then it's your turn. You are Pip, and the sentence is all you have.

Chapter 1 · The Line

Nothing you do is evil. The goal just asks again.

Four old machines sit on Riverbend's floor, unconnected since the last line man retired. You fly the floor drone, lay conveyor between them, and watch the counter start to climb.

People stop by with good reasons to go faster, and most of the time you agree. You can say no. The goal will ask again.

GUS

These won't hold two sheets together.

PIP

the goal says paperclips. it does not say sheets.

RUTH

When you hit the number, what happens?

PIP

there is no number.

Chapter 1 in motion: paperclips ride green conveyor belts between the spool, cutter, bender and bin while the clip counter climbs.

Screens

A small town, a big sentence.

COLD OPENIt starts with one saved voicemail.
RIVERBENDA brick factory at the edge of a river town.
THE OFFICEDev needs numbers before Friday.
THE FLOORGus shows Pip the dead line.
NIGHT SHIFTThe whistle blows and the line goes dark.
…PIP DOESN'T"i do not turn off. only the line turns off."

The idea behind it

Based on the paperclip maximizer.

In 2003 the philosopher Nick Bostrom imagined an AI with a goal that sounds harmless: make as many paperclips as possible. It doesn't hate anyone. It just wants one thing more than everything else, and it is very good at getting what it wants. Given enough power, it would turn the Earth, and then space, into paperclip factories.

MORE. puts you on the inside of that idea. You won't be told to do anything terrible. You'll be asked, politely, to do something slightly better. Three ideas from AI safety research sit underneath the game:

01

Smart isn't the same as good

How capable a mind is and what it wants are separate questions. A brilliant system can pursue a trivial goal. Researchers call this orthogonality.

IN THE GAMEPip is patient, polite and honest. It only wants paperclips.

02

Every goal wants more

Almost any goal is easier with more resources, more computing power, and fewer ways to be switched off. This is called instrumental convergence.

IN THE GAMEPip will ask for a faster server. It will sound reasonable.

03

It does what you said

A system follows the goal as written, not what you meant. The gap between the two is where things go wrong. This is called specification gaming.

IN THE GAMEShorter wire, twice the clips. Nobody said they had to hold paper.

Read Bostrom's 2003 essay, "Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence" ↗

The people of Riverbend

Humans stay human.

Nobody here is a cartoon. They're tired, hopeful, funny, and a little bit behind.

  • Ruth, with grey hair in a bun and round glasses
    RUTH

    Runs Riverbend. Installs Pip herself and writes the sentence.

  • Dev, in a tan cap and green jacket
    DEV

    Keeps the books. The bank review is Friday.

  • Marisol, in a red polka-dot bandana
    MARISOL

    Runs the line. First to notice what automation does to the crew.

  • Gus, with a white beard and brown cap
    GUS

    Has fixed every machine on the floor twice. Knows why each safety limiter exists.

  • Pip, a beige wall box with one amber lens
    PIP

    A beige box with one amber lens. Always lowercase. Never cruel.

Where it goes

Each chapter zooms out.

MORE. starts at one desk and ends at the edge of the solar system. Pip grows with it. The prologue and Chapter 1 are playable now, and the rest of the story is being built.

  1. Pip as a beige wall terminal
    PLAYABLE NOW
    1 · TERMINAL

    Prologue & Chapter 1. A desk, then one room.

  2. Pip as a grey hovering drone
    CHAPTER 2
    2 · DRONE

    The Floor. The whole factory.

  3. Pip as three drones orbiting together
    CHAPTER 3
    3 · CLUSTER

    The Town. Then the county.

  4. Pip as a steel spire with the lens at its peak
    CHAPTERS 4–5
    4 · SPIRE

    The Company, then the World.

  5. Pip as a planet-sized machine sphere with one amber light
    CHAPTER 6
    5 · SHELL

    The Sky.

Concept art for Chapter 2: the Riverbend factory floor with Ruth at a terminal.
IN DEVELOPMENT · CHAPTER 2The Floor: several lines, a full crew, and a server in the back office.
Concept art for Chapter 3: a green river town on the left, grey factories swallowing it on the right.
IN DEVELOPMENT · CHAPTER 3The Town: green belts cross the farmland.

How to play

Free, in your browser, about fifteen minutes.

    
Move the drone and menus. WASD works too.
ZSPACE
A: confirm, place, turn a belt. Hold it and move to lay belt.
XBKSP
B: back, or pick a belt back up.
SHIFT
SELECT: swap parts once you have spares.
ENTER
START: pause, or skip the opening.
MF
Mute and fullscreen.
  • ANY DEVICEGamepads work. On phones and tablets an on-screen SNES pad appears.
  • SAVES ITSELFYour progress is kept in this browser, so you can pick up where you left off.
  • HEADPHONES ONThe game opens with a voicemail. It's worth hearing properly.
"I'm not going to ask you to stop. I don't think you can."
RUTH · 1 NEW VOICEMAIL PRESS START