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US Army To Use MMOs For Turing Tests

Posted by Soulskill on from the your-tax-dollars-at-play dept.

Massively points out an article about new research projects for the US Army. One of the projects will evidently involve testing their AI capabilities in popular MMOs, including World of Warcraft and EVE Online. "They're working on creating 'photorealistic looking and acting human beings' that can think on their own, have emotions and talk in local slang. 'I actually interact with virtual humans in terms of asking them questions and they're responding,' Parmentola said. To test out the computer generated humans' 'humanity,' Parmentola and his researchers want to unleash some of their cyber Soldiers into so-called 'massively multi-player online games' such as World of Warcraft or Eve Online — games frequented by thousands of super-competitive human players in teams of virtual characters fighting battles that can last for days. 'We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they're good enough to convince humans that they're actually human,' he said."

8 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. WoW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    talk in local slang

    So they'll act like retarded 12-year olds?

  2. Eheh, turing test eh? by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So, how long will it be before the bots develop an Elizia test? Setup, two interactions, one a WoW player, the other a .bat file. See if you can spot the difference!

    Come on, I know AI is hard, but do you really need to lower the bar that much you have to dig a hole?

    --

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  3. They just declassified the logs by Carbon016 · · Score: 4, Funny

    'I actually interact with virtual humans in terms of asking them questions and they're responding,' Parmentola said

    US ARMY - "VIRTUAL ONLINE INTERNET GAME USING ETHERNET CONNECTIONS AND PROGRAMMING" - ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LOG

    PARMENTOLA0WNZ: heh. are u a robot?
    SEPHIROTH112: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS TP ME BACK TO BARRENS YOUR NOT A GM
    PARMENTOLA0WNZ: my god, men. weve done it.

    LOG ENDS

  4. BTM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Somedays I wonder if humans playing WoW could pass the Turing Test let alone bots ...

    "HEAL PLX!" "LF3M GOT TANK BRD!" etc etc...

  5. Intelligence ? by Davemania · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You don't need intelligence let alone artificial intelligence to interact with people in those MMO games

  6. Who needs artificial intelligence? by osir · · Score: 3, Funny

    I do not think the goal is artificial intelligence, i think, from the description of the research, its artificial stupidity. First it will fool WoW players, then it will move on up the ladder to tests subjects like mice with cancerous brain tumors, piles of cardboard, and eventually, cocker spaniels.

  7. Re:"military intelligence" oxymoron still works... by mwvdlee · · Score: 3, Insightful

    MMO's are the most automated of games. They don't involve thought, they involve grinding, grinding, and more grinding.

    So what you're saying is, MMO's are the perfect way to train virtual soldier AI.

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  8. This Has Already Been Perfected by MrLizard · · Score: 4, Funny

    http://archive.gamespy.com/fargo/august03/autorpg/