Tokyo-based artist and game designer Tomo Kihara visits the UCLA Game Lab to discuss his practice of critically exploring AI through play. Best known for award-winning projects such as How (not) to get hit by a self-driving car (co-created with Daniel Coppen), Kihara uses games as a space for audiences to collectively explore the nature and social implications of AI.

In this talk, he will discuss the emerging design space of LLM-integrated games, the ethical questions raised by these systems, and the ways certain game mechanics can empower players to deviate from algorithmic predictions. He will also introduce his latest project, Game of Possible Lives, currently on view at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo. In the work, players make major life decisions such as marriage or career change for another individual, then witness how that life branches out within a world generated in real time by a locally running AI model.

The talk will be followed by a roundtable discussion led by Eddo Stern, contributing to Kihara’s ongoing research on the intersections of games and art. The event will also include a play session of Deviation Game, an experimental party game Kihara developed with the art duo Playfool in which players must make drawings that humans can understand but AI cannot.

Support for this visit is provided by the Japan Creator Support Fund — WAN: Art & Tech Creators Global Network.