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AI in Video Games vs. AI in Academia
missingmatterboy writes "Dr. Ian Lane Davis, AI researcher turned game development studio head, talks briefly about the differences between AI used in the game industry and the AI being researched in academic institutions. A short read but you may find it interesting."
This seems a bit much even for Wired. The creatures in these games are following a predefined set of rules, certainly they are a complex set of rules, but the way they "learn" is entirely predetermined (that is, what they learn depends on what they are exposed to, but the formula for converting exposure into knowledge is set by the game designers). I think the fact that the graphics are rendered so realistically makes it easier to make the leap to thinking they are really acting "intelligent."
Who knows what really sets human intelligence apart, is it ability to make rules or nondeterministic memory or whatever, but it seems evident (to me, in my ever-so-humble opinion) that these creatures don't have it.
- adam
"I don't think all those AI coders out there are thrilled by the idea that their lifes work is used for games
Maybe they're thrilled, maybe they aren't. Aside from conducting interviews with the researchers themselves, we really don't have any way of knowing. That's sort of beside the point, though.
I think the simple fact of the matter is that both applications probably benefit each other, although possibly not in the way most people might think. When I started out programming, a lot of my initial projects were focused on game development. A recurring theme in my thinking was ways to make the computer opponent "smarter", which naturally led me to wonder how I could make the computer learn new tactics and adapt to the human player's actions. As I quickly learned, adaptive systems research is serious stuff.
So, I decided to dig into whatever materials I could get my hands on related to artificial intelligence research and theory. To be honest, I never really got very far, but it remains an interest of mine to this day. I'd be willing to bet some of tomorrow's leading AI researchers are playing video games today. That seems like a pretty good benefit to me.
I guess the key point is this: if a particular application of a certain technology gets people excited about it, and interested in researching it, it's a Good Thing.
This posting quotes from the book to make this point.
Most households were first introduced to computers by video games. It does not surprise me that the first introduction to AI for many people is computer games. I realize that spell checking and grammer checking, a form of AI, may be in many houses too.
Even the military is using game-developed technology for combat simulators.
In a very bottom's up biological intelligence thing (animal reasoning), cruise control *can* be (I don't know if it *is) structured as an AI thing.
You have two analog controls, gas and brake. You have time; how long to break, how long to accelerate; you have intensity, or magnitude, how much gas and how much brake pressure, and then you have current velocity, current RPM, current gear, and even mass to take into account, not to mention road curvature, road quality, and road grade (steepness).
In this light, it's a very valid AI question. Can you create a system that maximizes fuel economy and ride quality (you want to avoid extreme acceleration and deceleration, right?).
I know for a fact that I can outperform my car's cruise control for both milage, performance, and ride quality. As long as I can perform better than my car, then the car isn't being intelligent enough, and is therefore an AI quality problem.
To be more precise:
If you're on a down grade and you're below the threshold speed, you can let the car coast and naturally accelerate. If you're above the threshold speed, you need to actually slow below the threshold speed to take into account the fact that there is acceleration as a factor. Or instead of braking, the car can shift into a lower gear, alternating with braking, to insure brakes don't overheat.
Then there's curvature. The car should actually decelerate going into a curve; it should do so more aggressively the tighter the curve, but as the driver starts straightening it should accelerate again. How much should it slow down? How much should it accelerate? It's not linear, but depends strongly on how banked the road is and what the road conditions are. Wet vs dry, or even icy, for example.
Or going uphill. The car should accelerate to counter the speed drop, but should probably try to stay in the best gear, even if it means falling below the threshold for a while, because of fuel economy and power output. So it should accelerate somewhat, but be able to decide that staying in 5th at 70mph isn't nearly as good as dropping to 4th and going 63mph if the grade is steep enough. It should probably also be able to check engine temperature to guage when to keep going 70mph, and when to switch to a lower gear and drop to 63mph (loong shallow grade vs small, if steeper, hill, for example)
See, right now cruise control is really only best for straight sections of clear road because not enough AI has been applied, and not enough AI is available, to deal with curvy windy uphill and downhill roads, which is actually a better place for AI to be used, allowing the driver to concentrate on where the car is going (not over the cliff, I hope)!
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