Playing With Life: Are Living Video Games Ethical?

A dozen students huddle around a laptop-strewn table crammed with palm-sized circuit boards and unruly rainbows of wire. Each student tinkers with his or her own clear plastic platform, which resembles an Ikea twin bed no bigger than a box of Kleenex. A webcam attaches to the headboard, staring down at a square pool pressed into the bed, illuminated by a single LED wired to the footboard.

The class’s instructor, Geva Patz, unscrews a small jar, sucks out an eyedropper full of liquid and carefully squeezes a few beads into the tiny pool, as students gather around. Patz rotates the webcam’s focus ring back and forth until the student’s laptop screen sharpens with a flurry of what looks like white rice grains, swimming erratically.