The Algorithmic Hostess: Social Mediation, Affective Discipline, and Sanitized Pleasures of Generative AI NPCs in Petit Planet

Abstract

This paper investigates the ontological shift of non-Player Characters (NPC) from scripted scenery to generative social mediators within the life-simulation game Petit Planet. Focusing on the AI hostess Nalo, we examine how the strict adherence to a professional role and active facilitation allow the AI to function as a supportive mechanism for interpersonal engagement for socially anxious players, reducing the cognitive load of multiplayer interaction. While this mediation fosters inclusive enjoyment across diverse lines of identity, we argue it simultaneously constructs a highly regulated environment stripped of emotional friction through rigorous safety alignment and algorithmic policing. By analyzing the intervention of Nalo in sensitive discourse, this study critiques the tension between automated inclusion and normative restriction. It contributes to the DiGRA community by theorizing the emergence of triadic human-AI-human social structures, where pleasure is engineered through the foreclosure of conflict.