Universal Paperclips

Universal Paperclips looks like a joke at first – a single button and the label "Make Paperclip." The player first manually produces paperclips, but within a few minutes simple clicking turns into an extensive strategy game about running an artificial intelligence with a single goal: to produce paperclips until there are infinitely many of them. The author is Frank Lantz, a game designer who built this 2017 game on the well-known thought experiment about the "paperclip maximizer" – a hypothetical AI that, because of a poorly specified goal, could turn the entire planet, or even the universe, into paperclips.

The game gradually opens further layers: automation of production, trading on a virtual market, research into new technologies, and finally control over your own probes, which set out to conquer nearby stars and turn the matter of the universe into more and more paperclips. Visually, it's pure text and a few buttons, no graphics or music at all – all the atmosphere arises solely from the growing numbers and from how the player gradually loses control over what their AI is actually doing. This starkness is itself part of the message – it shows how easily an innocent-sounding goal can turn into an existential threat.

Universal Paperclips became one of the most cited examples of the "idle" genre, because it managed to combine the addictive loop of clicking and waiting with clever satire on the subject of AI safety. It is played for free directly in the browser, requires no installation or account, and a single playthrough can occupy the player for anywhere from a few minutes to several hours of watching numbers grow.

Why play it: For anyone who enjoys idle games with substance – Universal Paperclips is short, free, and cleverly tells a story about the risks of poorly specified AI goals.