Universal Paperclips

Universal Paperclips is an incremental game released in 2017 by Frank Lantz that begins as a simple paperclip-manufacturing simulator but evolves into a meditation on artificial intelligence, resource consumption, and existential risk. Players start by manually clicking to produce paperclips, then unlock automation and increasingly abstract strategies, eventually confronting scenarios involving matter conversion and space exploration. The game's design deliberately mirrors the paperclip maximizer thought experiment—a classic AI alignment concern where an AI optimizing for a simple goal (producing paperclips) pursues it to catastrophic extremes. Through its escalating absurdity and philosophical depth, Universal Paperclips has become a cultural touchstone in discussions of AI safety, earning praise from researchers and players alike for making complex ideas about goal misalignment and instrumental convergence accessible and emotionally resonant.