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Tetris AI System

You've probably always wanted a system that reads a Tetris game via a webcam, decides the optimum move, and then inputs the commands to make that move, right? Well, now your prayers are answered.

23 of 208 comments (clear)

  1. Oh but... by RPoet · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I thought Tetris was NP-hard ;)

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    1. Re:Oh but... by KoolDude · · Score: 5, Insightful


      Being NP-hard means there are no existing polynomial-time algorithms to find the *optimal* solution. That doesn't mean it is impossible to write a program that can find *good* solutions. Moreover, NP-Hard problems get really impossible for higher instances. For small instances of NP-Hard problems, brute force search is still feasible.

      Another point is that the article you mentioned discusses a restricted version of Tetris.

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  2. The New 4th law... by gokubi · · Score: 5, Funny

    1. A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

    2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

    3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

    4. A robot must never place the long skinny ones horizontally, unless it leads to a long skinny vertical hole so 4 rows can be cleared at once the next time a long skinny one comes around.

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    1. Re:The New 4th law... by GuyMannDude · · Score: 4, Funny

      I thought Directive 4 was that any attempt to arrest a senior officer of OCP Corporation would result in immediate shutdown!

      GMD

  3. Wow! by The_Rippa · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now THAT's some serious nerding...too bad a feat like this does nothing to impress the ladies

    1. Re:Wow! by Bonker · · Score: 4, Funny

      No, to impress the ladies with an app like this, you need something that can optimally play The Sims so that you can arrange any given soap-opera scenario to your liking.

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    2. Re:Wow! by Kenja · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't know. Being able to use a computer to get the right long piece into the right slot could be useful. However it could end up like my old boost of having a big Wang in my bedroom. Girls always left somewhat disappointed.

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  4. A really useful tool... by ShawnDoc · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now if they would just adapt this to playing Solitare, I'd never have to come to work again! The computer could do my "job" for me.

  5. Great For Super Geeks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny
    This is great for the /.er who not only cant find a girlfriend and therefore is home playing tetris all Saturday night, but also cant find a friend to play tetris with. Just plug in your computerized friend and you will have fun all night long.


    That is until he beats you 27 times in a row and you throw your controller at his camera-head and cause him to crash.

  6. Tetris Setup Photo by Indras · · Score: 4, Funny

    Someone get this guy a Desktop Cleanup Wizard!. And I thought I had too many icons on my desktop...

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  7. As my Favorite Family Guy Character would Say by indigogorge.net · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Holy Crap!!! You mean I don't ever have to think again! Sweeeet!!"

  8. Penny Arcade movie suggestion by klang · · Score: 5, Funny
  9. They didn't SOLVE it... by ArthurDent · · Score: 4, Informative

    There's a difference between being able to play well and solve the game. If you read the article, the machine was able to complete about 600 rows per game. (Which is pretty damn impressive!)

    I'm not really sure how you'd use Tetris to prove P=NP, but it probably has something to do with making an AI that could play forever and never lose, and further be able to prove that you could never lose, which is probably even harder than making the AI!

  10. Re:POV Tetris by ptrangerv8 · · Score: 4, Funny

    your light has gone out...
    if you move downward any fartheryou will be eaten by a grue
    you were eaten by a grue, please try again.
    (yes, mod me down, but it's still damn funny!)
    ;beer;

  11. Classic Slashdot by vasqzr · · Score: 4, Insightful


    Great post.

    No Microsoft bashing, no debates about IP, distributions, no whining.

    Serious, hard-core, geek shit.

    Geek takes computer, does something incredible, writes up an wonderful web page, perfect.

  12. Take it a step further by Stroman+Rebar · · Score: 5, Funny
    Don't just stop with squads of computers hunting people over the net in FPS games. We can shrink them down put them in indestructible exoskeletons with nuclear batteries to hunt down actual people! Then we can wrap in fake skin and send them back in time to... uh...

    Never mind. It may not be that great of an idea

  13. Geom Cube by yerricde · · Score: 4, Informative

    "You are looking down a deep chute, falling towards an irregular field of colored squares ...."

    Is 3D Block for NES, 3D Tetris for Virtual Boy, or Geom Cube for PS1 close enough to what you want?

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  14. I am not as impressed... by Conspiracy_Of_Doves · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I am not as impressed with the AI's ability to make decisions about what to do in the game as I am with its ability to dicern the shapes and locations of the pieces on the screen! Now THAT is cool.

  15. Only a couple more steps. by mshiltonj · · Score: 5, Funny

    Very, very impressive.

    If I may humbly suggest a few design improvements as you continue to develop the item:

    1) Remove the electrical connections, and have it physically press the keys of the keyboard with a robotic arm of some sort.

    2) Make it mobile, so it could, for instance, go in search of a tetris game, if it gets bored.

    3) If it sees a tetris game being played, but doesn't have access to the keyboard, it can verbally (with synthesis) tell the player what to do. "left! left! rotate! rotate! drop!"

    4) Trash talking. "I can't believe you dropped that there! What are you -- a carbon-based unit? go back to playing pong, you binary digit."

    4) Global Thermonuclear War.

  16. Not impossible... by ArthurDent · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That arguement doesn't *prove* that it's impossible, because that arguement hinges on there being a long series of only S and Z pieces. The only way you could prove that that issue would always cause a loss is if you could prove that an impossible to place series _necessarily must_ occur. Unfortunately, because the piece order is by definition random, you can only say that it is very likely that an impossible to place piece order would occur eventually, not that it must occurr. Therefore, a perfect game of Tetris could be played (based on this problem alone; there may be others), but success is not entirely based on the skill of the player!

    That's a very interesting result to say the least! Well I guess it's interesting if you're a math geek like myself at least......

    Ben

  17. Re:Artificial Intelligence by lirkbald · · Score: 4, Funny

    The AI was limited and I think a more accurate project for AI would be to actually host an AI service that offered network-accessed primitives for supreme entropy to contribute to a work of data; such centralized AI system would allow gamers as well as scientific computing to benefit from a verry good entropy pool of numbers as well as improve the funfactor of gaming.

    Y'know, I read through that several times, and I still don't know what it says. I'm pretty sure the poster didn't either.

  18. Problem is... by mrjah · · Score: 4, Informative

    The problem isn't so much how to count cards -- it's how to count them without letting your betting patterns get noticed. Presumably you're spending money and time on a card-counting hardware/software system with the intention of using it semi-regularly, so this is an important consideration if you want to win more than a few dollars here and there without getting attention from the eyes above and the eyes on the floor.

    Let's say you're using a well-established counting method like hi-lo, or something like it of your own devising. Given that this is Slashdot, the latter is probably more likely, regardless of whether or not it's actually any better.

    So whatever your system is, you have a hot shoe at this table. Your computer is buzzing your arm or shocking your ass or whatever it does to get your attention, and you want to abruptly drop a set of big bets to cash in on the improved but fleeting odds your computer has identified. You're going to get some unwanted attention if over the course of a few hours you "randomly" drop a big pile of chips in the center of the table a bunch of times. Particularly when you keep jerking up from the table as if you've been shocked in the ass.

    That is, unless your system has some method of wager management that lets you blend in while reacting quickly to good odds. That seems pretty tough.

    Maybe the computer could establish what appears to the casual observer/dealer as an idiotic, repeating pattern of wager quantities, thereby identifying you to all around as a grade-A moron and eliminating alarm when you change your betting quantities abruptly. Many easily recognized patterns would suffice. By changing these patterns in only moderate ways, it could be possible to eke out smaller but still positive expected returns than in elementary, obvious-to-keen-eyes card counting. You'd have to stick around the tables for a long time, though, to take advantage of a razor-thin advantage.

    Oh, wait, that's how I do it. Albeit without computer assistance or the anal probe. So I guess I shouldn't have posted this.

    Anyway, good luck building the glasses!

  19. Those damn skinny pieces by Hershmire · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If you watch the video linked on the site, you'll notice that the computer has the tendency to leave a long empty row on the side(s), just like pretty much every human player I've encountered. Seems like that temptation transgresses all boundaries. ...

    Damn skinny pieces. Always my downfall.

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