Get today's popular DigitalTrends articles in your inbox:

Why it matters to you

The Maritime Singularity simulation is yet another example of real-world value stemming from playing video games.

The next time someone tells you that playing video games doesnt have real-world applications, you might be able to say that your gaming skills assisted the U.S. Navy. As originally reported by Engadget, the U.S. Navy has put out a call for participants for its Maritime Singularity MMOWGLI -(massively multiplayer online war game leveraging the internet).

Technological singularity hypothesizes that if and when artificial superintelligence is invented, it will set off a swift chain reaction that will change human society forever, and not necessarily for the better. As itdevelops strategies for dealing with the possibility of apost-singularity world, the U.S. Navy thinks that gamers are ideal for problem-solving the future.

Dr. Eric Gulovsen, director of disruptive technology at the Office of Naval Research, claimed that technology has already reached the point where singularity is in the foreseeable future. What we cant see yet is what lies over that horizon. Thats where we need help from players. This is a complex, open-ended problem, so were looking for people from all walks of life Navy, non-Navy, technologist, non-technologist to help us design our Navy for a post-singularity world, he said.

If Maritime Singularity is set up like the Navys previous MMOWGLIs, such as the recent effort to foster a more prosperous and secure South China Sea, participants will come up with opportunities and challenges pertaining to singularity and play out various scenarios.

If the Navys interest in singularity doesnt sound enough like dystopian science fiction already, the games blurb certainly sounds like it was ripped from the back cover of a William Gibson novel:

A tidal wave of change is rapidly approaching todays Navy. We can ride this wave and harness its energy, or get crushed by it. There is no middle ground. What is the nature of this change? The SINGULARITY. We can see the SINGULARITY on the horizon. What we cant see, YET, is what lies OVER that horizon. Thats where you come in.

Maritime Singularity is open for signups now, and will run for a week beginning March 27. For more information, check out the overview video above.

See more here:

U.S. Navy reaches out to gamers to troubleshoot post ...