Slashdot Mirror
Next Gen Beautiful But Brainless?
Next Generation has up a short piece discussing a Guardian Interview with AI developer Steve Grand. Grand opines that next-gen graphics are deepening the uncanny valley. More than just plastic looks and inhuman faces, the weakness of game AI is increasingly becoming glaring compared to the graphical prowess in games. "AI isn't so much unappreciated as nonexistent. Most of what counts as AI in the games industry is actually a bunch of 'if/then' statements. If a computer character doesn't learn something for itself then the programmer must have told it what to do, and anything that does exactly what it's told and nothing else is not intelligent. This is changing, and neural networks and other learning systems are beginning to creep in. But games programmers tend to devalue the phrase 'artificial intelligence."
"The market" can't decide on something that it doesn't have a chance to buy in the first place, now does it?
Nothing's stupider than some pithy comment about "the market." The market is people, and people can be irrational about a lot of things. The invisible hand deserves a rap on the knuckles from time to time.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
You already have the suspend your sense of belief to really think that you will actually beat a computer in say a FPS where it can aim perfectly, or a fighting game where they can simply react to any move you might do. For example you can play the training mode in Soul Calibur and you'll quickly realize that the computer can guard counter every move you ever do forever, but of course they don't do that in the real game. Even on the super duper hard setting they give up after a while, even though they can do it forever on the training mode. Shin Akuma in various Street Fighter incarnations counters almost every move perfectly. You throw a fireball, he'll jump kick you. You jump kick him, he'll dragon punch, and the only way to beat him is hit him with moves that he isn't programmed to counter. There's no reason why the computer can't play like that aside from it'd make a very boring game when you repeatedly get owned by a computer.
If by being smart means 'better at a game' the AI is already a super genius. If by smart means 'flailing your hands around while pretending to do something before losing to a human player', then whatever that creates the best sense of illusion works the best. If it's a bunch of if/else statements, why not? There's no reason any fancy technique will get you a fancier loser.
With the already ridiculously high cost of development to bring graphics up to modern day standards for "bleeding edge" it's not like they have much time to develop a good system for something they can't show you a screenshot of. Spending the time to develop a real AI as you described doesn't really add much value to the game in terms of marketing.
Another reason AI isn't advancing is because modern games in addition to concentrating on graphics also concentrate heavily on multiplayer and online aspects. Sure the "AI" in an FPS or RTS might not be all that great but how good does it need to be? most people will just breeze through the solo missions in a few short hours and then spend the next 6 months to a year playing online where AI doesn't even factor into it. Once again, some solid multiplayer features are much more valuable use of development time then computer AI.
Honestly I see us moving to a point of being less depend on AI before AI actually gets better... it's just not a cost effective use of development.
Collector's Edition