AI Researchers Produce New Kind of PC Game

Ken Stanley writes "In an unusual demonstration of video game innovation with limited funding and resources, a mostly volunteer team of over 30 student programmers, artists, and researchers at the University of Texas at Austin has produced a new game genre in which the player interacively trains robotic soldiers for combat. Unlike most games today that use scripting for the AI, non-player-characters in NERO learn new tactics in real-time using advanced machine learning techniques. Perhaps projects such as this one will encourage the video game industry to begin to seek alternatives to simple scripted AI."

Comments

Re:Or perhaps...

[archevis]

The Republican party will get interested, and use a similar technique to train -real- presidential candidates?

Re:Or perhaps...

[pete-classic]

This isn't meant as a flame, and I apologize in advance for anything that follows that seems like a flame. The questions that follow are intended to stimulate thought and discussion, not to inflame your temper :-)

What do you base your statement on?

Was it an off-the cuff comment, or did you seriously consider it before posting?

Do you think that war is ever necessary or appropriate?

If you found yourself in a "him or me" situation, through no fault of your own, would you choose a strangers life over your own?

I hope I've been civil. I hope you reciprocate :-)

-Peter

Re:Or perhaps...

[PsiPsiStar]

I'm going to be harder on you than I would/will be on the OP, since you decided to jump in.

I don't care how "hard" you think you are.

I'm sure that you think that link is a slam dunk, but I think that it is telling that you haven't a single word of your own on the topic.

You have no clue what I think, as you've made quite obvious.

These weren't guys who had been "in country" for weeks and months, and had developed an instinct for differentiating an RPG hit from enemy cannon fire. This was some 20-something guy, maybe a year out of West Point, or two out of ROTC, and some enlisted men, maybe 19 or 20. If they had the presence of mind to formulate a though more complex than, "Fuck! Those bastards are trying to kill me!" then they are probably better men than you or me.

Which means that you agree with the original poster that people are pretty bad at differentiating friendly from enemy fire.

In the past, AI has not allowed people to make calmer, more objective decisions. Landmines, to take one example, kill civilians more easily than they kill soldiers, and without the accountability.

Now, I'm in favor of any technique or technology that you can come up with that reduces fratricide. But smug, flippant comments that show no application for the realities of combat make me sick.

Are you blind?

I didn't make a 'comment' at all and let the facts speak for themselves. You're wandering around these messageboards looking for an argument, despite your earlier talk to the contrary.