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Computer Game Predicts Player Moves
willatnewscientist writes "A couple of Hungarian researchers have developed a computer game that knows when you're going to press the 'jump' button ... 2 seconds before you do it. The researchers use neural networks to analyse several type of biofeedback signal — heart rate, EEG and skin conductance — and discovered that skin conductance alone is enough to predict a jump up to 2 seconds beforehand. They say the technique could ultimately be used to make aircraft controls that respond more quickly to a pilot's actions. But it could also be used to create so-called 'frustration games' that respond to a player's actions before they occur."
http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050704/pf/436150a_ pf.html
Living With a Nerd
Big deal? You can train chimpanzees to realize that I'm going to jump the hell out of the way when I see a RPG headed my way.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Yeah. Call me crazy but I'm not sure I want to fly in a plane where the computer is attempting to take a stab at guessing what the pilot is going to do. Just a bit unnerving.
I've predicted this post five minutes before you've posted it!
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
They're not really predicting the player's actions here, are they. In their game, you're just timing a jump. Given that the swinging vines are only near enough to jump between some part of the time, they're just predicting which opportunity the player will try for the jump on. Since they're measuring skin conductivity and the player has usually decided to jump some time before the timing is perfect, these results don't really surprise me. All they've done is train a neural network to measure stress levels well enough to predict when someone is about to take a risky action - in this case, jumping their avatar between vines.
Any plan which depends on a fundamental change in human behavior is doomed from the start.
Unfortunately the research was found to be flawed when they discovered that 99% of the test subjects were playing Night elf characters in World of Warcraft. This was pinpointed just prior to a potentially embarassing follow-up news release of a study showing the connection between frequency of spacebar usage and use of the phrase "come on flip already dammit!"
This sounds like it has applications for having a mouse you control with your mind. It seems like the way their system works is that it notices certain physiological changes in you when you are mentally preparing to make a jump. Now, if you can learn to recognize what you are thinking that activates those physiological changes, then you could intentionally make them, and then those changes could be used as the input.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I play plenty of games where I'm positive I have no way of knowing if I'm going to jump 2 seconds before, unless I can somehow tell where enemies are going to move in advance.. which would be very interesting. I'd be interested to know how long in advance they can detect button presses on more 'twitch' games.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Neo: What vase?
Oracle: That vase.
Neo: I'm sorry--
Oracle: I said don't worry about it. I'll get one of my kids to fix it.
Neo: How did you know?
Oracle: Ohh, what's really going to bake your noodle later on is, would you still have broken it if I hadn't said anything? If you know that the game knows you're going to jump, will you still do it?
It's ok; just switch controller ports.
all they have achieved is predicting how far away the game has placed the next jump, based on indirect observation. You can probably achieved the same result with any statistical prediction model. If the player can jump freely without having to catch the branches then I doubt their system would be that accurate.
Just because it is not nice , doesn't mean it is not miraculous.
Obligatory penny-arcade reference. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2006/09/07/
One can only hope that version 2 will play a Kris Kross clip every time it makes it's prediction.
2 seconds seems like a really long time. The player isn't reacting here, they are timing. If one makes a very quick reaction, which happens in less than one second, then your fingers can't possibly know 2 seconds in advance.
It's one thing not to read the article, but you clearly didn't even read the summary. I have my doubts as to whether you will even read this reply to your post.
This sig has been stolen. Return it to its original user for a reward.
They say the technique could ultimately be used to make aircraft controls that respond more quickly to a pilot's actions.
*Pilot cruising around Washington DC on anti-Terrorist patrols*
(Thinking to himself)
"Oh wow, I'm like... right over the White House now, it would like totally suck if I accidentally shot a"
*Missle launches at White House*
"Oh crap!! Do NOT think about launching missles!!"
*Missles launch at various historical monuments*
"Craaaaaap!! My Sarge is gonna KILL M"
*Plane explodes*
Cwm, fjord-bank glyphs vext quiz
This sounds like the experiments done by Benjamin Libet, in which he found that actions are initiated by the brain before one consciously decides to perform them.
Wouldn't this be dangerous in an airplane? 2 seconds is a pretty big window of time between when a pilot might decide to do something and when he actually does it. During those two seconds, a lot could happen - unexpected turbulence, new weather data, a gust of wind on the runway, etc. If the computer acts on the command two seconds before the pilot intends for it to happen, bad things could happen.
"Sir, you're not allowed to place sensors on your opponents."
fine, so the game doesn't quite work the way i thought it did, but it is not that clearly described in the article (not at all in the summary). I still think that it is just a simple prediction model, anyone can do it if they had access to the right equipment. I stand by my original comment, what is your point?
Just because it is not nice , doesn't mean it is not miraculous.
I saw such a programm a few years ago:
http://www.phi-t.de/mousegame/
It uses a neural net to predict your next move.
...when MS word and excel keep trying to guess what I mean.
THL phish sticks
News Anchor 1: The porn industry's new, forced feedback game, 'Long Time Coming', has reportedly achieved sold out status across the globe. The church continue to voice their opposition.
News Anchor 2: In other news, employers have noticed a sharp increase in the number of 'sickies' by employees. This absence from work is reportedly costing billions, a phenomenon being experienced worldwide. The cause of the epidemic is not yet known.
.
You don't play video game. Video game plays YOU.
One interesting application might be to switch up the music timed to what the player is about to do. Allows for more a seamless change, while keeping it synced with what's actually going on. Because music choice is a rather vague process to begin with, I expect the vagaries in what, precisely, the user is preparing to do to be less of an issue.
That should be easy to get around, just drink a helluva lot of Jolt & coffee, then play a very cautious strategy...
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
An aircraft that second-guesses the pilot? Sounds like a brilliant idea.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Would this be consistent with a many-worlds interpretation, in which, at each moment in time, the multiverse splits into branches of either LED flashed/didn't flash or button pushed/not pushed? But once the LED flashed, you know that no branching occurs until after you push the button. What is the branching event? With this causality problem, could you interpret your pushing the button as being caused by the flashing of the LED? How would you describe the causal interaction of the flashing LED with your brain's activity?
Actually, it seems to me that the implied conclusion of an absence of free will is not implied by the observed events. The argument rests on backward propagation of causation, but the conclusion that prediction is equivalent to determinism rests upon an interpretation of the events within the context of a forward causality model. If the person permits the idea of backward causation, he can still conclude that he caused the LED to light up, only before he pressed the button. The event which was not determined was whether or not the LED lighted up. Once it does, he can claim that he caused it, albeit one second into the future. Since the LED was not compelled to light when it did, he was not compelled to push it, even if once the LED does light up, it APPEARS that he is compelled to push it.
On a similar note, he can simply claim that the predictor is a reliable model of his brain. Again, some people may claim that prediction is not equivalent to determinism. He might go as far as saying that since the predictor is a reliable model of his brain, the predictor and he are BOTH free-willed, and reasoning in the same way, have naturally and objectively agreed upon the moment the button should be pushed. I am beginning to see how the "is-ought" gap is somehow involved with the notion of free will/determinism.
Cramer's interaction interpretation of quantum mechanics involves backward-forward propagation of interaction, and yet is claimed to be fully causal, in much the same way that the Feynman-Wheeler theory of electromagnetic interactions is.
Finally, I suppose the one second split was set up in light of some measure of human reaction time? Couldn't a person, after seeing the LED light, alter his behavior in less than one second? If the answer is no, I guess I am beginning to see that the envisioned scenario is, in fact, deterministic.
Fantastic. Clippy will be making fun of my spelling mistakes two seconds before I make them.
(The above is a joke. I would rather apply Clippy to myself nasally than run MS Office.)
So Skulldilocks threw acid on the schoolchildrens' faces, cause somebody from the bible told her to do it!
It wouldn't act on the command before the pilot commanded, but it could do some "setup" (light up the buttons the pilot will want to use to make them easier to find, bring up data relating to the task, etc.). Some high-end cars have similar features (they tense up the seat-belt if you hit the breaks hard, and get the airbag ready).
Good computer tools do something like this already, just in a more primitive way. Imagine that when you are almost finished writing an email, the computer could bring up the send button and move the mouse cursor over it. So now, instead of moving your mouse and clicking, you just click (super small help, but nice).
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
In certain advance and surprisingly effective magical systems, like a hindu saiva siddha yoga for one example, causality is treated as symmetric relation in time dimension. Determinism is an illusion in such paradigm, letting free will remain superior above everything. Pitty you anonymous coward.
There you are, staring at me again.
Pfft... Metal Gear Solid did this YEARS ago!
Damned Psycho Mantis...
But I tricked it! Yeah, they never realised I had TWO CONTROLLERS! BWHAHAHA!
You haven't played against some players. Half the newbies will stand watching the pretty missile coming their way, then half of those start screaming "cheater!", "aimbot!", "wall-hack!"
;)
My favourite example from way back when I still played CS goes like this:
So I just pick the first server that's not full or empty, from a list sorted by ping. It has only 2 players, but everyone has to start somewhere. More will probably come.
The first thing I notice is that suspiciously I'm assigned to counter-terrorist, while both the guys already on the server are terrorists. Not much point in playing a team game if both are on the same team, and the only two on the whole server.
I'm new on that server, I quickly buy a TMP, I don't get any armour, helmet or grenades, and pretty much rush ahead like a noob. If you're not familiar to CS, the TMP used to be the most underpowered SMG. You pretty much needed to change the clip if the opponent had armour and you weren't at point blank range. Well, not exactly, but you get the idea. (I'm told it became much better in the meantime, but I wouldn't know.)
So I run into them around a corner, and I mean literally bump into. I had one guy's head on half my screen. I'm surprised to see that one of them is already carrying the bomb in his hands, half a map away from the target position, and the other one is apparently guarding him. At any rate, it's a sunday morning and I hadn't had my coffee yet, so they watch me and I watch them like a noob for a full second or so. (Yeah, not one of my best days.)
Then I open fire and ventilate both their brains from 1 ft away, like the NKVD
Before I go any further, let me stress that some more: it was not the most challenging situation or good for bragging rights in any way. I was very slow to react and it was from 1 ft away, so it's hardly an achievement. I mean, my barrel was pretty much up one of their noses.
So they start screaming that I somehow used aimbots or wall hacks. WTF? "Guys, why would I ever need a wallhack or aimbot from 1ft distance?" I get kicked.
Ah well...
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Haha, computer, you will not catch me, I'm a button-masher! If I don't know what I'm doing until after I've done it, you'll never figure it out!
Seriously, while this might work for games like Mario (Hmm. That's a hole. Maybe I should jump?) I don't see it working on anything fast-paced.
"What is Internet Explorer 7? Are you saying we can't access the normal internet?" - I love tech support. Really.
I can't wait to play a "frustration game"! That sounds like fun!
I guess it will become an advantage to jump before you intend some time. Or any other action before you intend to.
Interestingly the flinch reaction is actually faster than the regular reaction time, about twice as fast, 0.15s but the response is hardwired into the brain, you can't do anything about the flinch itself. Many karate "blocks" are responses based on what to do after flinching.
Deleted