Artificial Intelligence has recently become a widely used tool in a wide range of fields, allowing many different applications. Gaming industry makes no exception from this point of view, as the large majority of the companies currently rely on AI resources for quite various purposes. In the light of a rather complex moment for the industry, the emerging role of Artificial Intelligence stands as an element of novelty, fuelling further possibilities of growth, as well as a source of ethical and regulatory issues, especially for the operators. Here we will try to briefly summarize the present situation, both from users and companies perspective, and to highlight what are the major ethical issues that industry and regulatory bodies could be facing in the next future.
How AI is used by gaming companies
The present use of AI tools by gaming industry companies appears to be already of a remarkable extent.
Among the different possible applications, the most widespread are:
- identify customers vulnerability; Artificial Intelligence softwares allow gaming companies to detect potential risky behavioural patterns, especially from gamblers prone to spend large amounts of money;
- tailor game experience; many companies have started to use generative AI in order to offer increasingly tailored game experiences to their customers. How? Developing more user friendly layouts and avatars, incentive and bonuses policy able to fit what users are looking for, as gamblers usually filter the options available online through platforms like online that offer specific themed content (like, for example, with a Stake.us review focus);
- game design and concepts code control (so to emend loopholes and bugs that player could exploit);
- predictions, especially for sport betting applications, based on the gathering and later assessment of huge amount of data;
- chatbots, widely used in the very first stage of customer assistance;
- safety programs and fraud detection related to suspicious gaming patterns.
Ethical issues rising from AI applications in gaming industries
Many operators claim that Artificial Intelligence is able to enhance the customer experience yet it is pretty clear that, looking at the big picture, there is more than a gray area to deal with. When it comes to game ethics, it looks quite hard to set the boundaries between the pursuit of profit from gaming companies and the actual welfare of customers.
Artificial Intelligence can potentially play a key role in both ways. And somehow it already does. This is probably the aspect that, more than any else, fuels ethical issues connected to a proper AI tools regulatory action within gaming industry. In very broad terms, the huge gordian knot is represented by the compliance to social responsibility, to privacy normative order and commercial transparency, only to mention some of the most delicate and potentially controversial aspects of the general matter.
Notwithstanding, from a user point of view, it looks pretty clear that companies should at least make the customers aware about the use of AI implementing clear and easy to access data protection and privacy policies. The latter ones are almost inevitable, as Artificial Intelligence applications in gaming industry mostly rely on data sharing and gathering, which is inevitably a source of concern. Thus, it is not hard to imagine that, in a not so far future, companies will have to make crystal clear the uses of AI in their own privacy policy. This aspect could turn into a future regulation milestone, especially whether AI-based age verification and facial recognition tools will become a real option for preventing underage users from illegally accessing online gaming and to enhance customers’ safeguard from dangerous behavioural patterns.
On the other hand, from a companies perspective, generative AI can stand as a useful resource to meet compliance requirements; Artificial Intelligence tools could, for example, be used to ensure that contracts are written properly, providing internal models for the industry operators. Yet, it could be argued that a game contract should at least be revised from a ‘human’ third part, giving rise to ethical issues concerning the actual legal value of an agreement completely set only by an AI tool.
