The technological challenges of the future are all aimed at automation. The progress made by Artificial Intelligence algorithms is very rapid and follows one another at a dizzying pace, so as to arouse the concerns of industry experts and workers who fear being replaced by these new automation systems. Among the numerous sectors immediately in contact with these new technologies, videogaming must certainly be counted: as demonstrated by the profound relationship between videogames and technology in general, with the associated risks for videogame heritage preservation, the videogaming sector has always had a privileged relationship with every technological innovation, and automations are no exception. Yet there are various aspects of video gaming, played professionally or otherwise, that seem unsuitable for automation.
In reality, on closer inspection, the video game has always come to terms with the need to insert "automated" players: every NPC can well be considered as such, who however limits himself to sticking to a basic script, a few lines of code that regulate some essential actions in order to create a semblance of life around the gamer. The example of BOTs is much more fitting, i.e. players controlled by the intelligence of the game who compete with one or more real gamers: this is an essential function for populating a server with a few connected players, to create training with selectable difficulty and etc. Despite the progress made in this sense, bots do not appear able to completely replace real players: their behavior, however natural, will always follow basic instructions, through which it is not likely to think of replacing a human gamer. In fact, a "real" automated gamer is still very complicated to hypothesize, even though AI has been successfully used in other videogame components. Another very particular aspect is related to the approach to videogames, especially the competitive one: not it is conceivable to replace a human pro player. Not only for the reasons already mentioned, but also for a much sportier reason: trivially, an automation process in a competitive video game would be dangerously close to cheating. For example, let's consider blackjack. Memory skills have always been the basis of applicable strategies in blackjack, as the rules of this game lend themselves well to enhancing an approach of this type. Not only is it a human activity that could hardly be perfectly automated, but in many cases it would be downright impossible: managers historically do not look kindly on certain strategies, but using accessories to help them in this sense is directly prohibited under penalty of expulsion from the table. It could be argued that, in videogame blackjack, no one could take us away from our computer; in reality, even in this case an automation of game strategies would be inapplicable for algorithms that manage randomness, for which it is not necessary to count on a pre-established number of decks of cards as in a croupier's table.
Then there is another aspect, in turn similar to the possible approaches to the video game and which with a comparison that is only apparently forced can be compared to the limits demonstrated by automation in art: creativity. In recent months we have witnessed the current limits of generative AI: although it is able to create short texts by drawing on information on the net, it still does not appear to be able to master artistic elements in a natural way. In addition to the gross oversights of hands with extra fingers, artificially generated images often appear unnatural and are unable to pass for human work. Moving on to the videogame, any gamer adopts creative approaches, interpreting the rules of the title with which he interfaces in an "artistic" way: from rocket jumping, i.e. making jumps to heights not foreseen by the game by exploiting the explosion of a rocket, to increasing the speed of movement of a character, taking advantage of the frames that make up the animations of sprints or dives. In other words, you go beyond the limits of the video game by creatively interpreting the rules that delimit its boundaries. An approach that, in the state of things, is the prerogative of human intelligence: automation, which still starts from basic instructions, is not able to reproduce this type of intelligence, and it is difficult to think that it could be able to do so soon.
In short, the world of videogames, despite its historic closeness to tech and innovation, seems to present various aspects that keep it distant from many automations: only the future will reveal how capable the latter are of bridging this gap.
