Michael Hoffman
Computer scientist and anthropologist working at a German supercomputing center who created the 'anthrogame' by feeding Malinowski's text into LLMs to produce an interactive text-adventure interpretation of ethnographic material.
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Feb 13, 2026 • 58min
He Fed a Classic Anthropology Text To Make An AI Game. Here's What Happened.
Michael Hoffman, a computer scientist-turned-anthropologist at a German supercomputing center, built an "Anthrogame" by feeding Malinowski into LLMs. The conversation explores adapting dense ethnography into interactive fiction. It covers technical choices like retrieval-augmented generation, ethical framing and colonial context, player roles and surprising student playtests, and the limits and promise of AI-made cultural simulations.
