Beyond just gaming however, it's a development that raises a tantalizing prospect: might AI video games allow neuroscientists and psychologists to probe more deeply, and unravel enduring mysteries about our brains and behavior? Our senior reporter Jessica Hamzelou decided to find out. This story is from The Checkup, our weekly newsletter all about biotech and health. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Thursday. Before the internet, Americans may have interacted with the federal government by stepping into grand buildings adorned with impressive stone columns and gleaming marble floors.

These companies are applying large language models to generate new game characters with detailed backstories--characters that could engage with a player in any number of ways. Enter in a few personality traits, catchphrases, and other details, and you can create a background character capable of endless unscripted, never-repeating conversations with you. This is what got me thinking. Neuroscientists and psychologists have long been using games as research tools to learn about the human mind. Numerous video games have been either co-opted or especially designed to study how people learn, navigate, and cooperate with others, for example.