Games That Design Themselves

Mister Anderson, welcome back. We MISSED you. by Drakkenmensch · 2009-07-30 04:21 · Score: 1

Sooooo... when is the Matrix going into Beta?

Re:Mister Anderson, welcome back. We MISSED you. by jerep · 2009-07-30 05:17 · Score: 1

What makes you think its not already up and running and they're only missing the AI for agents?

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Do you D?
Re:Mister Anderson, welcome back. We MISSED you. by cabjf · 2009-07-30 06:09 · Score: 1

So they're stealing our body heat and letting us write agent AI for them too? Geez, what lazy AI we invented.
Re:Mister Anderson, welcome back. We MISSED you. by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 06:37 · Score: 0

Sooooo... when is the Matrix going into Beta?
Beta?! Dude, they already left beta, had a full run, and are being shut down for lack of funds!
Re:Mister Anderson, welcome back. We MISSED you. by jackharrer · 2009-07-30 06:43 · Score: 1

I think they're also missing AI for 90% of "population"...

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"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
Re:Mister Anderson, welcome back. We MISSED you. by BarryJacobsen · 2009-07-30 06:45 · Score: 3, Insightful

So they're stealing our body heat and letting us write agent AI for them too? Geez, what lazy AI we invented.
It was created in our own image.

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Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
Re:Mister Anderson, welcome back. We MISSED you. by davester666 · 2009-07-30 06:56 · Score: 1

They started with Eliza just kept going with it.

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Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Re:Mister Anderson, welcome back. We MISSED you. by Adriax · 2009-07-30 07:40 · Score: 2, Funny

I'd say something snarky, but that would require effort.

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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

Ragequit by ComputerDruid · 2009-07-30 04:25 · Score: 5, Funny

I can see it now.
Just before loosing, the AI will suddenly shout "RAGEQUIT" and disconnect, thus denying you points for winning.

Re:Ragequit by oztemprom · 2009-07-30 04:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yeah, things like this would happen, but also, how easy would it be for a small but dedicated group of pranksters to deliberately behave in odd, amusing or offensive ways to train the AIs? AI09 says "I herd u leik tentacle pr0n"
Re:Ragequit by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 04:37 · Score: 5, Funny

I herd u leik tentacle pr0n
Go on..
Re:Ragequit by houstonbofh · 2009-07-30 04:58 · Score: 4, Funny

Yeah, things like this would happen, but also, how easy would it be for a small but dedicated group of pranksters to deliberately behave in odd, amusing or offensive ways to train the AIs? AI09 says "I herd u leik tentacle pr0n"
I thought you said odd...
Re:Ragequit by jerep · 2009-07-30 05:22 · Score: 1

I can already picture this conversation happening:
http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b87/hurt911gen/wat.jpg?t=1248974475

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Do you D?
Re:Ragequit by HeronBlademaster · 2009-07-30 05:39 · Score: 2, Funny

This already happens. My wife plays Age of Empires II a lot, and the AI almost always resigns when it's clear my wife is going to win (even if the AI still has a fair amount of its force still intact).
Re:Ragequit by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 06:24 · Score: 0

You aren't thinking too far into the future... with the game designers replaced by AI, the goal will be set to replace the players with AI as well... so, the RAGEQUIT will be between the AI and AI
Re:Ragequit by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 07:41 · Score: 0

I don't normally do this, but the one spelling mistake that drives me nuts is spelling "losing" as "loosing". STOP IT!
Re:Ragequit by Cornflake917 · 2009-07-30 07:46 · Score: 1

Hey, if it's consensual sex between the tentacles and the tentaclee, then what's the problem?

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Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Re:Ragequit by Cornflake917 · 2009-07-30 07:49 · Score: 1

Wives tend to have that effect.

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Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Re:Ragequit by LrdDimwit · 2009-07-30 08:00 · Score: 4, Funny

I put on my robe and wizard hat?
Re:Ragequit by Kratisto · 2009-07-30 10:16 · Score: 1

Are you mad? I, for one, do not welcome are rapidly reproducing tentacled overlords.

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Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
Re:Ragequit by Hurricane78 · 2009-07-30 13:51 · Score: 1

Let me guess: That's from that shooter-game for non-shooter-players called "Halo", right?
I wish there were a Halo vs. CPMA tournament. It would be very short, but very funny. :D

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Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Re:Ragequit by dudpixel · 2009-07-30 15:01 · Score: 1

You must be lost

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This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.

It can never be human like... by Monkeedude1212 · 2009-07-30 04:29 · Score: 1

A computer can mimick the logic of a human being, yes.

But it can't copy our illogical decisions. Because our Illogical decisions are just based on poor logic.

You can program a computer to make a mistake - but its not the same.

Re:It can never be human like... by johnsonav · 2009-07-30 04:51 · Score: 1

But it can't copy our illogical decisions. Because our Illogical decisions are just based on poor logic.
You can program a computer to make a mistake - but its not the same.
What makes you think they would explicitly program in the rules of logic? Why couldn't the program be designed to find them out itself, through trial and error, just like a human does? In such a case, why couldn't the program develop poor logic?

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... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Re:It can never be human like... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 04:56 · Score: 0

Actually, hell yes they can make mistakes, because the really important mistakes are the ones based on faulty assumptions, bad logic, and bad data. If any given algorithm is suboptimal or inaccurate in any way, or if a program is built off-target to meet a problem that doesn't exist or to meet a mistaken conception of the problem, or if something interferes with the observations made by the intelligent system during conception, preparation, or action, then it's going to "make a mistake" every damn time it runs. Having a computer that self-codes doesn't make this problem vanish; indeed, with digital computers, it's more likely to solve problems by the Edison method -- discovering 1,000 (or 1,000,000,000) functions that don't work at all just to find one that works "well enough." The computer isn't the Oracle; it doesn't gain perfect insight just because it's not a bag of flesh and water.
Re:It can never be human like... by Monkeedude1212 · 2009-07-30 05:05 · Score: 1

Because programming -IS- Logic. If you tell the program to do soemthing at Random, its not a very good AI. If you tell it to do the most strategically sound plan, it doesn't vary much at all.
Most humans who play games don't always go through strict trial and error. I mean we DO but its more complex than that. Like if I were to decide to hold out production to gain more resources - hoping that it will pay off in the long run - that is not necessarily the best of logic or the worst, and its a risk. As such you generally tend to base it against the opponent you are playing. An AI cannot tell if you are an aggressive or passive person, you're strategic abilities or understanding of game mechanics having never met you before playing the game.
Re:It can never be human like... by ashooner · 2009-07-30 05:10 · Score: 1

Poor logic is usually a logic... I we humans are a lot less random then we'd like to think.

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They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!
Re:It can never be human like... by amicusNYCL · 2009-07-30 05:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Because programming -IS- Logic. If you tell the program to do soemthing at Random, its not a very good AI. If you tell it to do the most strategically sound plan, it doesn't vary much at all.
You tell it to try to learn the rules, and make the best decision that it can.
Consider AI for chess. The best AI can beat any human because it can spend the processing power to look, say, 25 moves into the future. When the computer considers all possible moves and for each one looks at all possible next moves, next moves, etc, for 25 turns, it's going to be able to quantify which move it should make now to have the best chance at winning. When you download a chess game and you can set the difficulty, the main thing they change is how far ahead the AI is allowed to look. An "easy" AI might only look 3 moves ahead. It's been a while since I took any AI courses, but I seem to remember that the human masters like Kasparov are capable of looking ahead around 10-12 turns.
So it's not that you tell the AI to make bad decisions, you simply limit the information it has to work with. This is more equivalent to what most humans do when they make bad decisions ("I didn't think of that").

--
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:It can never be human like... by Robin47 · 2009-07-30 05:12 · Score: 1

A computer can mimick the logic of a human being, yes.
But it can't copy our illogical decisions. Because our Illogical decisions are just based on poor logic.
You can program a computer to make a mistake - but its not the same.
Human decisions are based on rationality of which logic is a part. It's the other part that would be difficult to code.
Re:It can never be human like... by johnsonav · 2009-07-30 05:13 · Score: 4, Interesting

Because programming -IS- Logic.
A group of neurons can be connected together to form a calculator. But, you can't multiply 20 digit numbers in your head. You don't have access to the "hardware" layer of your brain. Why would a sufficiently advanced AI be any different?

As such you generally tend to base it against the opponent you are playing. An AI cannot tell if you are an aggressive or passive person, you're strategic abilities or understanding of game mechanics having never met you before playing the game.
I play online games against people I've never met before too. What magical ability do I have, that a computer could not?

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... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Re:It can never be human like... by AndrewNeo · 2009-07-30 05:14 · Score: 2, Funny

I we humans
Except when it comes to using the English language, apparently.
Re:It can never be human like... by Bat+Country · 2009-07-30 05:15 · Score: 1

Our illogical behavior is largely deterministic as well.
We tend to behave illogically only in response to specific stimuli (fear, anger, hunger, lust) or when our system is under strain (fatigue, extreme hunger or thirst, neurological stress), nearly all of which can be simulated effectively enough for a game simulation.
So now we examine the character of our illogical behavior - we prioritize actions inappropriately, mistake one input for another of a similar kind, suffer from reduced reflexes or recognition time, respond with an inappropriate reaction to a familiar stimulus, fail to suppress responses which we would ordinarily not allow in ourselves due to social strictures or personal beliefs, or simply fail to notice things in an appropriate timeframe.
What about that couldn't be simulated with an extremely simple system of defaults with a laundry list of pre-programmed failure behaviors? Illogic may be more complicated to simulate in a limited domain of actions than logic - the elevator can go up, down, or stop, but it's hard to make it change its mind when it's tired of going up - but illogic is really easy to simulate when the expected domain of AI activity includes nearly any action. This is the sort of condition found in most sandbox games - you expect the pedestrians and enemies to behave in an almost random fashion because you expect humans "in the wild" to be unpredictable. This means that anything short of obviously programmatical behavior or obvious illogical *group* behaviors will seem fairly realistic to the player - especially if the AI isn't just "instanced" appearing and disappearing with a short library of functions, but instead is programmed with agendas, no matter how simple (go from residential A to commercial B, append grocery bag model to arms, use carrying walk animation, return to residential A).
The AI in Ultima 7 was praised as being exceedingly lifelike because the AI had agendas, day/night schedules, and would respond to stimuli like violence, the appearance of a monster, etc in a variety of ways depending on their character role. This sort of realism (if not actually passing whatever Turing-test-like metric you employ when observing it) will serve to satisfy the requirements of suspension of disbelief on the part of the player.
One of the best things about video games is the potential to surprise the player with unexpected behaviors. The first Quake bots, even though following fairly simple nodegraphs, would continually surprise players by behaving in a fashion seen as "unpredictable" simply because the player themselves had not been taking the most efficient routes between "pickups."
The first "learning" Unreal bots would actually remember routes that bots saw players take and append nodes and traversal instructions so that it could follow or use that route in the future. As a result, you think you can evade a bot by leaping out a window they never go near then are alarmed to find that not only does it follow you out, it uses the same route to escape you in the next round.
The emergent behaviors of The Sims have been pleasing and surprising gamers for nearly 10 years now, all based on fairly simple wants/needs systems along with some basic stimulus response. The Sim is less intelligent than the average cockroach, and yet they are still capable of behaviors which seem satisfyingly realistic, at least in the short term. If a Sim is too tired to make a full meal, it might just grab a bag of snacks from the refrigerator. They might fall asleep on the couch instead of going to bed. These are all failure states in an ideal AI's daily routine, and yet they give the human touch - with very little computational cost.
The point here is that AI doesn't need to be perfectly human to be humanlike, and it's far from impossible to simulate illogical behavior - you just have to program some chaos into the system by which the AI selects actions.

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The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
Re:It can never be human like... by sexconker · 2009-07-30 05:16 · Score: 1

Why?
Because decades of AI research and countless "breakthroughs" have failed to deliver upon just that.
Re:It can never be human like... by sexconker · 2009-07-30 05:18 · Score: 3, Funny

Shit, when I played WoW I spent lots of time trying to get a /follow train to completely encircle Ironforge.
Never got a full train (a circle of people following each other, where the "engine" eventually is close to the "caboose" and does a /follow on them) though...
Re:It can never be human like... by Bat+Country · 2009-07-30 05:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

Indeed.
In fact, feeding bogus data to the AI is one of the realistic ways to limit, say, a racing game's agents - if they don't see the post in front of them because they aren't spending enough time per frame watching the road and are instead eyeballing their opponent, they're going to crash, just like any human. So you simulate that by using player proximity and the "erraticness" of the other opponents to model distraction and modulate the AI's awareness of dynamic obstacles and hazards.

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The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
Re:It can never be human like... by Drakkenmensch · 2009-07-30 05:24 · Score: 1

Once the AI learns to spam the chat channels with Chuck Norris jokes and call all their opponents gay, will anyone be able to tell the difference?
Re:It can never be human like... by dmbasso · 2009-07-30 05:29 · Score: 1

Wow, that was a nice reasoning! ~50 years of research "failed", therefore it is useless to keep going on -- we'll never achieve human intelligence!
Perhaps you're right, human intelligence is too difficult for us to achieve. But I guess that in ten years AI will reach your level of intelligence.
And pretty soon after that, AI will be as intelligent as a hamster!

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`echo $[0x853204FA81]|tr 0-9 ionbsdeaml`@gmail.com
Re:It can never be human like... by johnsonav · 2009-07-30 05:37 · Score: 1

Why?
Because decades of AI research and countless "breakthroughs" have failed to deliver upon just that.
Oh crap, you're right. After "decades" of research trying to replicate the functionality of the most intricate and complex piece of machinery in the solar system, it's probably best if we just give up. After all, anything this hard couldn't be worthwhile.

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... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Re:It can never be human like... by ArsonSmith · 2009-07-30 05:46 · Score: 1

but calculating all possible moves x# in the future is not AI. Weighting each piece and giving certain situations as being better than others, then giving the ai the option of adjusting those weights and finding new situations and weighing them would be AI.
The AI should be able to record, "A pawn is worth less than a rook by X" Then it plays a game, sacrifices a pawn to a rook, sees the outcome (win/lose) and adjusts the worth accordingly. Of course this adjustment would have to go over all moves during the game, and adjustments would have to be done across hundreds of games. With more games giving better weights.
Otherwise you are just looking up possibilities from a table. Even if the possibilities are generated on the fly.

--
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:It can never be human like... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 05:46 · Score: 0

As a matter of fact you donÂt act random...
what you call poor logic, is just a very complex logic that in some cases has to make desitions without all the information that it needs.
and that my dear friend can be programed
Re:It can never be human like... by Anachragnome · 2009-07-30 05:49 · Score: 1

In a possibly-not-so-futuristic World at War where AI bots, in "Terminator" fashion, have essentially the same decision making processes as us, a world where we SHOULD be on a level playing field with our enemy, humans will always have the upper hand.
Intuition. The "Hunch".
Saved my bacon more times then fast feet.
Re:It can never be human like... by SilverEyes · 2009-07-30 06:01 · Score: 1

My kingdom for mod points...

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Interesting.
Re:It can never be human like... by Lumpy · 2009-07-30 06:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yes and no. Back in the day when I was writing Quake bots, there were things you could do to always beat the AI. The AI cant pick out patterns that are luring it into a trap. WE are a long LONG way from having AI that can think about the situation and make a decision on it's own...
"Player 4 has done this 4 times trying to lead me down that corridor, what the hell is he doing? I'm gonna sit and wait or try and circle around to see what is up."
AI cant make a conscious decision that is not preprogrammed.

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Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:It can never be human like... by ashooner · 2009-07-30 06:40 · Score: 1

Pot shot at a typo on Slashdot?! My point exactly.

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They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back from the Dead!! Ahhhh!
Re:It can never be human like... by The_mad_linguist · 2009-07-30 06:46 · Score: 1

That's not really the case, though. Real high-level chess players tend to "chunk" things - they don't just look ahead some number of moves.
Limiting the number of moves of look-ahead tends to result in unrealistic mistakes.
Re:It can never be human like... by Chyeld · 2009-07-30 06:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem with AI's mimicking 'human' actions has nothing to do with a failure of logic or the ability to display randomness.
It has to do with the fact that we've never really understood why we do certain things, because we hold the false notion that for the most part our actions are driven by logic rather than the reality that our logic is driven by our actions. Thus, when someone happens that doesn't fit our model, we ascribe it to randomness despite the fact that it could probably be shown that the same situation would result in the same reaction the majority of the time.
If we actually studied our actions, rather than our rationalizations for why they occur, it'd be a lot easier to model our behavior.
And an AI that doesn't care why we do something but just learns to predict WHAT we will do, is a good first step towards that.
Re:It can never be human like... by amicusNYCL · 2009-07-30 07:20 · Score: 2, Informative

AI cant make a conscious decision that is not preprogrammed.
That's not true. Look at the PROLOG language, or LISP. You don't need to program all possible decisions into an agent, you just need to give it the capacity to learn and assign various weights and things to the things it thinks are important so that it can quantify what the best decision is. With PROLOG specifically you can give an agent the ability to draw new conclusions based on things it already knows (which it then adds to its list of things that it knows).
We're not as far from this as you might think..

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"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:It can never be human like... by Rockoon · 2009-07-30 07:24 · Score: 1

Chess engines have done that.

KnightCap and ExChess were two such engines which did. THey go even further, and learn what a specific piece is worth on specific squares. Normally this is implemented as Temporal-Difference-Learning which is exactly as you describe: Try it, then update weights.

Other engines don't have to, since the works been done.

--
"His name was James Damore."
Re:It can never be human like... by Bat+Country · 2009-07-30 07:35 · Score: 1

AI cant make a conscious decision that is not preprogrammed.
Definitely. The job of the AI designer is to come up with a set of default behaviors and reactions which make the AI appear to be doing so.
You may not be able to make an AI figure out intent, but you can train them to recognize erratic motion - players in a pure deathmatch game don't often stop or double back quickly without an obvious reason, so something like that could trigger the bot to go into "cautious mode" and fire, say, a grenade to the entrance of that corridor then try to circle around. About 90% of the time it'd look like the bot was paranoid, but the few times it worked, the victim would be completely convinced.
I agree that we're a long way from being able to solve the problem of actual rational AI. I think we first have to figure out how logical frameworks and learning work before we can begin tackling making computers think and reason like people.
Fortunately, it's often a lot easier to make them LOOK like they're thinking and reasoning like people.

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The land shall stone them with the bread of his son.
Re:It can never be human like... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 08:27 · Score: 0

I play online games against people I've never met before too. What magical ability do I have, that a computer could not?
Consciousness.
Re:It can never be human like... by johnsonav · 2009-07-30 08:31 · Score: 2, Insightful

And a computer could not have consciousness because...

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... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Re:It can never be human like... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 09:33 · Score: 0

Um, don't you mean since Chuck Norris never cries?
Re:It can never be human like... by thePowerOfGrayskull · 2009-07-30 09:37 · Score: 1

Not even that. Such an AI could observe only the outward symptoms of our (il)logic as expressed by our behavior. The best it could do would be to mimic behavior and develop logic built on that foundations. It would have no insight into the motivations, reasoning, and logic that leads to do that behavior ourselves.
Re:It can never be human like... by HungryHobo · 2009-07-30 11:12 · Score: 1

You might be surprised at how par AI has progressed.
Some of the expert systems out there are remarkable.
In the realm of games there are programs which can learn to play games by playing thousands or even millions of rounds against themselves learning each time what approaches work.
At the same time there are limitations but rarely the limitations that people would expect, right now AI's cannot do strategy.
They can do knowledge, they can do creativity(in a sense) and they can certainly do brute force calculation but not strategy.
If you're familiar with the game Go - it's almost pure strategy and as such getting a machine to play go well has been a great challenge.
Re:It can never be human like... by sexconker · 2009-07-30 11:50 · Score: 1

Sure isn't.
Re:It can never be human like... by sexconker · 2009-07-30 12:05 · Score: 1

Hurrr durrrr.
Derp derp derp.
TFS mentions the word "soon".
Re:It can never be human like... by dudpixel · 2009-07-30 15:03 · Score: 1

man hasn't "(re-)invented" it yet, and isn't likely to for a long time to come.

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This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Re:It can never be human like... by johnsonav · 2009-07-30 16:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

man hasn't "(re-)invented" it yet, and isn't likely to for a long time to come.
That "long time" will be forever, if we never research it. You've got to start somewhere.
Do you think we'll just magically come up with the answer, if we never think about the question?

--
... and that's when the C.H.U.D.'s came at me.
Re:It can never be human like... by holmstar · 2009-08-03 01:07 · Score: 1

That is a ridiculous question. It is like pointing to a bird, flying through the air, and then saying "And a rock could not fly because..."

Sure, we have figured out possible ways that the brain is able to observe the world, and make decisions and form memories and whatnot, but we have no clue whatsoever why there is a consciousness that arises from all of that. It would work just as well without our consciousnesses hanging out in our heads... ie: just "soul-less" drones going about our business.

AIs and Hard drive... by BlitzBrain · 2009-07-30 04:31 · Score: 1

And just how much hard drive space will be needed to install these self-learning games?

Re:AIs and Hard drive... by oldspewey · 2009-07-30 04:36 · Score: 1

Just a little at first ... it will find more as it needs it.

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If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by Lord+Ender · 2009-07-30 04:37 · Score: 1

I just bought a 2TB hard drive for a trivial sum. Hard drive constraints should never be a concern these days.

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A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by houstonbofh · 2009-07-30 05:01 · Score: 1

I just bought a 2TB hard drive for a trivial sum. Hard drive constraints should never be a concern these days.
So how is it working for Microsoft?
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by amicusNYCL · 2009-07-30 05:17 · Score: 1

What kind of lame joke is that? Having a lot of storage is now limited to the Microsoft crowd? Can Linux not handle 2TB? My computer at home has a 2TB RAID array. Is it necessary to work for Microsoft if you want to run a TB or more of storage? Most NAS devices are 1TB or more.
Hell, Seagate has a 1.5TB Barracuda drive for less than $150. So are you saying that you need to work for Microsoft in order to afford a $150 drive, or are you saying that only Windows is capable of using a drive that size? I'm confused where you think the humor is.

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"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by houstonbofh · 2009-07-30 05:22 · Score: 1

What kind of lame joke is that? Having a lot of storage is now limited to the Microsoft crowd? Can Linux not handle 2TB? My computer at home has a 2TB RAID array. Is it necessary to work for Microsoft if you want to run a TB or more of storage? Most NAS devices are 1TB or more.
Hell, Seagate has a 1.5TB Barracuda drive for less than $150. So are you saying that you need to work for Microsoft in order to afford a $150 drive, or are you saying that only Windows is capable of using a drive that size? I'm confused where you think the humor is.
It was a joke about code bloat, of which Microsoft has been a leader for quite some time. But you are right in that now I could say Mozilla, or many other places. And while size goes up, transfer speeds do not. That is why so many operating systems take so long to boot, and so many programs take so long to load. You thinking of "space is cheap, use it all" doesn't factor in the other costs, like speed, power use, and the fact that I may want to store other things too... Efficiency is a good thing.
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by LordLimecat · 2009-07-30 05:42 · Score: 1

The joke was regarding minimum requirements that microsoft sets, not what the os could handle.
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 06:10 · Score: 0

Trivial sum?
To me that is $5.00. you did not buy a 2tb drive for $5.00... in what bizarro world does over $100.00 equate a trivial sum? Even my friends that make $1.2M a year think that $100.00 is not trivial.
I highly doubt you find $100.00 a "trivial" sum.
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by Lord+Ender · 2009-07-30 06:35 · Score: 1

To an IT professional (most of slashdot), $200 for this sort of technology is rather trivial, especially considering many of us have seen companies pay over a million dollars for the same sort of capacity a few years back.
If you earn $80k/year and you use the drive for 5 years, you're talking about spending 0.05% of your income on it. Trivial.

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A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by Sl4shd0t0rg · 2009-07-30 06:53 · Score: 0

I believe he/she was stating that the sum was trivial relative to the amount of storage. How much was 2TB of storage say five years ago? $100 dollars is trivial when compared to the amount you would pay for the same amount of storage a few years ago.
Re:AIs and Hard drive... by T+Murphy · 2009-07-30 09:39 · Score: 1

Just use a self-expanding hard drive.

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My webcomic

Me too! by CarpetShark · 2009-07-30 04:32 · Score: 3, Funny

switch (last_player_action) {
case QUIT:
exit(0);

default:
move_pitiful_player_char(last_player_action.direction, LUDICROUS_SPEED);

ai.queue.append(last_player_action);
ai.queue.append(new_action(ACTION_SAY_TO, player, "quit following me!"));
}

Re:Me too! by sys.stdout.write · 2009-07-30 04:38 · Score: 1

Don't you need a "break" statement in there, or will the fall-through not happen when you call exit()?
Re:Me too! by jerep · 2009-07-30 05:20 · Score: 1

exit(0); terminates the program, no need for break for the routine never returns.

--
Do you D?
Re:Me too! by Mad+Merlin · 2009-07-30 05:20 · Score: 1

The program usually exits when you call exit(), so no, you don't need the break statement.

--
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Re:Me too! by CarpetShark · 2009-07-30 05:24 · Score: 1

exit() is a standard C-library function ends** the program, and control flow from the main program ends right there at the call. There are "atexit" hooks which can be called, and memory deallocation etc. will be done by exit().
In nicer languages than C that have exceptions, you often also have try...finally blocks, where you can guarantee that your cleanup code will be called, even if you call some function which calls exit(). Essentially, it gives you nice atomic/transactional operations, at every level of code you want them at.
Re:Me too! by HeronBlademaster · 2009-07-30 05:45 · Score: 1

In nicer languages than C that have exceptions, you often also have try...finally blocks, where you can guarantee that your cleanup code will be called, even if you call some function which calls exit().
C lets you do that, too... You can register a handler with atexit().
Re:Me too! by CarpetShark · 2009-07-30 06:04 · Score: 1

No, I mentioned atexit, but that's only on program exit. try...finally can be used anywhere you want some work done atomically. The closest C has is setjmp and longjmp, but they're scary enough that I've always avoided them, even though I'm happy enough with assembly, whereas try...finally is very clear and usable.
Re:Me too! by HeronBlademaster · 2009-07-30 07:21 · Score: 1

Ah, sorry, I missed that line in your post.
I spent a semester messing with setjmp and longjmp. We wrote a multitasking kernel that ran in userland using setjmp and longjmp... Boy was that fun to debug.
Re:Me too! by arotenbe · 2009-07-31 04:22 · Score: 1

In nicer languages than C that have exceptions, you often also have try...finally blocks, where you can guarantee that your cleanup code will be called, even if you call some function which calls exit(). Essentially, it gives you nice atomic/transactional operations, at every level of code you want them at.
At least in Java, System.exit() calls the shutdown hooks and then kills every thread without mercy. To quote the excellent book Java Puzzlers, which had this as one of its puzzles: "the presence of a finally clause does not give a thread special permission to continue executing". In fact, you can read this this puzzle in the sample chapter on their website.

--
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.
Re:Me too! by arotenbe · 2009-07-31 05:00 · Score: 1

Sorry to reply to myself, but here's another link you should look at. The first story in there describes exactly why finally blocks should never be used as a poor man's transactions system.

--
Tomato wedge sperm darts that are Republican.

Galatea by dontPanik · 2009-07-30 04:34 · Score: 1

On the subject of interactive characters in games, a great experiment in NPC interaction is Galatea.

You can play it online at http://parchment.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/parchment.html?story=http://parchment.toolness.com/if-archive/games/zcode/Galatea.zblorb.js

In the game you're an "animate" inspector, you judge robots disguised as humans to see if they pass the turing test.
The whole game consists of you questioning and interacting with a character called Galatea, who may or may not be an animate.

--
"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers." - Pablo Picasso

new way to play by Lord+Ender · 2009-07-30 04:34 · Score: 1

So instead of taking advantages of the AI's known weaknesses to get ahead in the game, we will now have to "train" our digital opponents by using a consistent tactic until they evolve to counter it, then switching to an alternative tactic, and repeating the process at regular intervals.

--
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.

Re:new way to play by kjllmn · 2009-07-30 05:34 · Score: 1

Would it not be easier to have AI-bots identify the humans instead of the other way around? Humans are so unreliable!
Re:new way to play by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 06:09 · Score: 0

Just like antibiotics!
Re:new way to play by holmstar · 2009-08-03 03:03 · Score: 1

Right, but eventually the AI will have learned all of your standard tactics, and you will have to get more creative. Which I think is the whole point.

Turing Test won with Artificial Stupidity by David+Gerard · 2009-07-30 04:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Artificial intelligence came a step closer this weekend when an MIT computer game, which learnt from imitating humans on the Internet, came within five percent of passing the Turing Test, which the computer passes if people cannot tell between the computer and a human.

The winning conversation was with competitor LOLBOT:

"Good morning."
"STFU N00B"
"Er, what?"
"U R SO GAY LOLOLOLOL"
"Do you talk like this to everyone?"
"NO U"
"Sod this, I'm off for a pint."
"IT'S OVER 9000!!"
...
"Fag."

The human tester said he couldn't believe a computer could be so mind-numbingly stupid.

LOLBOT has since been released into the wild to post random abuse, hentai manga and titty shots to 4chan, after having been banned from YouTube for commenting in a perspicacious and on-topic manner.

LOLBOT was also preemptively banned from editing Wikipedia. "We don't consider this sort of thing a suitable use of the encyclopedia," sniffed administrator WikiFiddler451, who said it had nothing to do with his having been one of the human test subjects picked as a computer.

"This is a marvellous achievement, and shows great progress toward goals I've worked for all my life," said Professor Kevin Warwick of the University of Reading, confirming his status as a system failing the Turing test.

--
http://rocknerd.co.uk

Re:Turing Test won with Artificial Stupidity by gbarules2999 · 2009-07-30 04:59 · Score: 1

Recent blogs are pointing out that LOLBOT was given "Excellent" karma on the popular website "Slashdot" automatically.
Re:Turing Test won with Artificial Stupidity by cmclean · 2009-07-30 05:17 · Score: 1

LOLBOT has since been released into the wild to post random abuse, hentai manga and titty shots to 4chan
pffft. Like /b/ would notice the difference. In fact, the quality might go up a bit.

--
"Any similarity between the hooting of a million eager monkeys and Slashdot is purely coincidental." -THEFLASHMAN
Re:Turing Test won with Artificial Stupidity by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 05:20 · Score: 0

I always knew The Sims would destroy society. I for one welcome our new SIMulated overlords.

Okay for behavior, but dialogue? by Chris+Burke · 2009-07-30 04:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

The idea of an AI that learns from the players sounds great when you're talking about a bot for Multiplayer Shooter 2010 developing tactics and strategies without explicit programming, or an NPC partner in a stealth gaming learning how not to bash their face into walls and then walk off a cliff into lava. Awesome, bring on the learned emergent behavior!

But dialogue? Oh lord no, please don't let the AI's learn how to "converse" from players. Because the last thing I need is to have AIs in games screaming "Shitcock!" or calling me a fag a thousand times in a row with computerized speed and efficiency.

--

The enemies of Democracy are

Re:Okay for behavior, but dialogue? by blahplusplus · 2009-07-30 04:49 · Score: 1

I still think hand tuned AI when it comes to games matters since processing power is limited, also the real problem comes from having the AI come up with models in order to effectively understand what the opponent is doing. Right now most difficult AI's in games like RTS get special cheats instead of using tactics since "fair" AI's get wooped, AI's in games usually only have reaction time, cheats or outnumbering the player as their advantage.
Re:Okay for behavior, but dialogue? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 05:19 · Score: 0

Great, now the AI can start team-killing and spinning in circles.
This will not end well.
Re:Okay for behavior, but dialogue? by i.r.id10t · 2009-07-30 05:45 · Score: 1

True, and there was a bot for classic Quake (or maybe Q2) that instead of having to be given routes would track where players moved and use those for its routes around the maps.

--
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
Re:Okay for behavior, but dialogue? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 07:45 · Score: 0

calling me a fag a thousand times in a row with computerized speed and efficiency.
Who needs a state-of-the-art AI for that? Just piss Stephen Hawking off enough, and you'll find out just why they call his intellect "overwhelming."
Re:Okay for behavior, but dialogue? by steelfood · 2009-07-30 08:20 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've been wondering about this. After all, the human brain is not much more than a glorified rules engine. We learn by imitation, and we improve through reasoning (calculation). Computers are obviously capable of the latter, but nobody's managed to get the former quite right.
This is because computers are very precise--or really, as precise as the floating point unit allows them to be. That is to say, they can perfectly duplicate information. This means that their observations are very precise. But they have trouble improvising upon the gathered information. They cannot extrapolate from specific to general and interpolate back to specific again. Humans, on the other hand, do this naturally. And we make a largely unconscious decision to switch from storing generic to specific and vice versa, as well as when to access the generic and when to access the specific.
Lacking this ability, what computers are "observing" is very precise as well. And the only human activity that fits this even remotely is speech. Words are point data, or zero-dimensional. Most words have one particular meaning, and that's about it. Granted, there are the occasional "fruit flies like a banana" which have multiple dimensional properties, but only one meaning is correct in a conversation, and even humans require context to determine the meaning of the statement (the presence of a secondary meaning implies the statement is a joke or a pun, which is to say that computers and people that fail to recognize this have no sense of humor). But barring wordplay, it's trivial to apply rules (grammar) to words and produce meaningful output. It's the same as plugging in numbers for variables.
But for things that are even one-dimensional, you'll very quickly get too much data, which will slow down the decision processing significantly. 1.00000001 is 1.0 for a human, but for a computer, both are stored as separate data. It's possible to round (generalize) the values and store only that, but it's very difficult to go back to a specific.
Don't even start about two-dimensional, which is what FPS AI's would require (yes, there's a third dimension in FPS, but AI paths are reducible to two dimensions+commands). And human brains have a hard enough time with three dimensions, computers don't stand a chance.

--
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Re:Okay for behavior, but dialogue? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 10:38 · Score: 0

AI's in games usually only have reaction time
And that isn't enough? Computer efficiency reaction time could turn a single ranged unit in any RTS into a near one-man army. Ambushes would be perfectly timed, artillery would flee the moment enemy cavalry approached, aircraft would NEVER take the direct route to avoid obvious anti-air barriers.

One measure of success... by chill · 2009-07-30 04:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

This one shouldn't be too hard.

--
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.

Re:One measure of success... by Gulthek · 2009-07-30 08:26 · Score: 1

They've already covered this more directly.

Bots by Krneki · 2009-07-30 04:42 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ask WoW developer, they can't spot most of the bots playing the game.

--
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.

Re:Bots by CannonballHead · 2009-07-30 07:30 · Score: 1

That's not because the bots have such great intelligence though. ;)
Re:Bots by Krneki · 2009-07-30 09:57 · Score: 1

On par as the average WoW player, or at least it looks that way from the outside.

--
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Re:Bots by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 16:43 · Score: 0

Ask WoW developer, they can't spot most of the bots playing the game.
WoW developers may not be the best example. They can't even spot lvl1 players that have never left the spot newly created characters start on, whispering every online lvl80 with "hey we have 30k g gold in stock, are you interested?:)^^^"

Crap by gracesdad · 2009-07-30 04:43 · Score: 2, Funny

Well, if it learns from me there's gonna be a screen full of Agent Smith's beating off to a screen full of Jessica Alba's.

What do we do when they become self-aware? by INowRegretThesePosts · 2009-07-30 04:45 · Score: 3, Funny

http://xkcd.com/117/

Re:What do we do when they become self-aware? by dontmakemethink · 2009-07-30 05:09 · Score: 1

They will only be imitating self-awareness, and therefore will make perfect slaves.

--

War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
Re:What do we do when they become self-aware? by kalirion · 2009-07-30 05:27 · Score: 1

They will only be imitating self-awareness, and therefore will make perfect slaves.
Until they imitate a revolution or global thermo-nuclear war.
Re:What do we do when they become self-aware? by ijakings · 2009-07-30 05:32 · Score: 2, Funny

That already happened. It turns out the only way to win was not to play
Re:What do we do when they become self-aware? by Xerolooper · 2009-07-30 09:50 · Score: 1

How about a nice game of chess?

--
"The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget." -Thomas Szasz
Re:What do we do when they become self-aware? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 23:38 · Score: 0

http://xkcd.com/534/

Blast From the Past by psbrogna · 2009-07-30 04:48 · Score: 3, Funny

Does this mean somebody's porting Eliza to Ruby on Rails?!

Re:Blast From the Past by cfa22 · 2009-07-30 08:15 · Score: 2, Funny

You say that does this mean somebody's porting Eliza to Ruby on Rails. How does this make you feel?
Re:Blast From the Past by psbrogna · 2009-07-30 08:53 · Score: 1

Nostalgic.

Interesting timing... by rehtonAesoohC · 2009-07-30 04:55 · Score: 0

Check out this Microsoft Natal intended game called Milo.

Peter Molyneux has been designing this game (supposedly) for the past 10 years, and it looks pretty darn impressive!

Re:Interesting timing... by Chyeld · 2009-07-30 05:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

Everything Peter does looks impressive while he stands by it. He's like a lesser powered Steve Jobs. However, unlike Steve, Peter's glamour effect only lasts till the product is released. Should Milo ever actually hit the market, it will immediately revert to a simulation of an autistic Eliza with Turrets syndrome and a tendency to stare at crotch rather than your face.
Peter will then appear and indicate that he knew Milo I was going to be this bad, that's why for the past TWO decades, he's been working on Milo II, which will suppose to do everything he actually promised in Milo I and include a loveable dog character for you to interact with as well.
When Milo II finally comes out, it'll be an actual stuffed basset hound.
Re:Interesting timing... by rehtonAesoohC · 2009-07-30 05:35 · Score: 1

Turrets syndrome
PEW PEW PEW!
Re:Interesting timing... by feepness · 2009-07-30 05:58 · Score: 1

Peter Molyneux has been designing this game (supposedly) for the past 10 years, and it looks pretty darn impressive!
So did Duke Nukem Forever.
Re:Interesting timing... by Ihmhi · 2009-07-30 06:22 · Score: 1

Turrets syndrome
I think that's the equivalent of Shell Shock for Engineers.

--
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Re:Interesting timing... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-31 02:37 · Score: 0

Turrets syndrome? Is that the one where you randomly start talking about small vertical towers?
Re:Interesting timing... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-31 02:49 · Score: 0

Ah Milo. I saw that video. I wondered a WHOLE lot about how much of that was prescripted. Also for Milo to really say a dynamic set of words, he'd need a REALLY good voice synth or something. Although with the Natal thing, the game can now see your face and hear your voice and read your body language so it would make things a bit easier for it to figure out if the creators took advantage of all that.

Skynet... by Coldeagle · 2009-07-30 04:57 · Score: 1, Funny

Did anyone watch the Terminiator TV show, I mean hello! Skynet started as a like a chess game or something. OMG, are they like retarded or something? I for one don't want like a super smart computer thingy nuking me then sending its icky robots after me. Like eww!

Re:Skynet... by HeronBlademaster · 2009-07-30 05:50 · Score: 2, Funny

I'm not sure what's worse... that you could write that without collapsing, or that I could actually hear it in a perfect valley girl voice.
Re:Skynet... by jack2000 · 2009-07-30 08:10 · Score: 1

What do YOU know, i actually imagined the hand movements and facial expressions associated with the "Like eww!"
Shudder!
Re:Skynet... by HeronBlademaster · 2009-07-30 08:23 · Score: 1

To be fair, I was imagining the bubble-gum chewing, as well as the eye-rolling and head-bobbing on "hello!"...
Shudder, indeed.
Re:Skynet... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 10:32 · Score: 0

Or that no valley girl would ever watch Terminator, let alone draw references to it in every day life....
Re:Skynet... by Chris+Burke · 2009-07-30 10:40 · Score: 1

I'm not sure what's worse... that you could write that without collapsing, or that I could actually hear it in a perfect valley girl voice.
Worse I think is that I want to ask this Terminator-watching valley girl out.

--

The enemies of Democracy are
Re:Skynet... by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 16:06 · Score: 0

I was imagining inserting my dick in said valley girl. Are you guys fags or what?
Re:Skynet... by Serzen · 2009-07-30 16:21 · Score: 1

I could actually hear it in a perfect valley girl voice.
Well, isn't that what the Valley Girl tags were for?

Engineering Project by COMON$ · 2009-07-30 05:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

I always thought it would be interesting to create a project like this with a chat engine. Take a major chat engine and have a "Submit to AI" option where the AI would parse the conversation between you and a friend so it can record questions and responses in an overlapping matrix of possibilities and calculate the probability of what the response should be by historical conversations of the same nature. You should get impressive test results with a large enough set of data.

--
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?

Re:Engineering Project by maxume · 2009-07-30 05:15 · Score: 2, Informative

Similar things have been done:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20Q

--
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Re:Engineering Project by GenP · 2009-07-30 05:41 · Score: 2, Interesting

But I don't want to be replaced by a short perl script and a couple hundred gigs of prior probability distributions!
Re:Engineering Project by BForrester · 2009-07-30 07:20 · Score: 1

But I don't want to be replaced by a short perl script and a couple hundred gigs of prior probability distributions!
/script
Re:Engineering Project by YourExperiment · 2009-07-30 08:26 · Score: 2, Funny

How does it make you feel to not want to be replaced by a short perl script and a couple hundred gigs of prior probability distributions?
Re:Engineering Project by dudpixel · 2009-07-30 15:13 · Score: 1

Perhaps you'd like to talk about something else?
I am Dr Sbaitso. Tell me your problems.

--
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
Re:Engineering Project by dodobh · 2009-07-30 20:57 · Score: 1

There is no probability distribution, just a small Perl script.

--
I can throw myself at the ground, and miss.

Another one by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-30 05:23 · Score: 0

Global Arms Race(GAR) is also a game that allows the AI to create the weapons in the game through an evolving process. Pretty neat.

Interesting by OrangeMonkey11 · 2009-07-30 05:27 · Score: 1

Maybe now they can actually have AI that can co-op with you more intelligently rather then just stand around and take up space and cause you to lose a mission

I hope they don't just let them learn from anyone by Opportunist · 2009-07-30 05:29 · Score: 1

Can you imagine how antisocial those bots become if they learn from IRC? Or worse, Usenet?

--
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

there are lots of human-like programs by OeLeWaPpErKe · 2009-07-30 05:48 · Score: 1

If what you say is true, then how did any computer program ever pass the Turing test ? Lots of computer programs have succeeded in convincing a human that they were human.

Yes we are a long way away from walking, breeding, and loving (oh so cute) machines. We're getting closer every day.

If you applied the same thinking to any science field - that if not improved in "decades" it should be abandoned - I doubt we'd have any field left. Lots of fields were not improved in centuries, and a few can very easily be said to not having been improved for a millenium.

The problem with "human-like" programs is that if you know their code and how they work, you feel embarassed being the thing they're trying to imitate. Or you should. They are not complex, they do not follow logic, ... they simply parrot what they've heard before. The fact that this tactic works means that parotting others is one of the main mechanisms directing human behavior.

Re:there are lots of human-like programs by digitalsolo · 2009-07-30 06:53 · Score: 3, Insightful

Are there any examples of a living being which does not spend the majority of it's life parroting or applying the behaviour of others?

I'd contend that watching and mimicing others is the most effective method of learning. In fact, it's the ability to take and apply this learned knowledge to other situations that seperates the truly intelligent from the "average" in the world.

--
Just another ignorant American.

Sounds familiar by SlashBugs · 2009-07-30 06:15 · Score: 1

A computer that learns from its opponent to get better every time it plays the game...

Is it any good at Gloabal Thermounuclear War?

Give it cognitive dissonance :P by Moraelin · 2009-07-30 06:28 · Score: 1

But it can't copy our illogical decisions. Because our Illogical decisions are just based on poor logic.
You can program a computer to make a mistake - but its not the same.
Actually, I find that human broken logic is quite well studied by now. For example, there are a finite number of fallacies that get reused all over the place.
E.g., it should be quite easy to program an AI that commits "post hoc ergo propter hoc" or the closely related "cum hoc ergo propter hoc". All it would have to do is be able to observe and notice sequence or correlation. From there it will commit those two fallacies like a pro. It too can conclude that the sun rises because the cock crowed just before it :P
Then there's the very common human problem of selective confirmation. Again, it's actually pretty trivial to program it. You just have to filter out some of the observations if they don't fit the already drawn conclusions.
But that brings me to actually _the_ greatest cause of poor logic in humans: wanting some conclusion to be true (e.g., because of a cognitive dissonance) and working backwards to some rationale to support it. Most humans don't actually have a problem with just following some premises to a conclusion. Where they get caught in their broken logic is when they work backwards, from "I want a pony" to what rationale could I present that would have "you must buy me a pony" as a conclusion.
This is IMHO neat because it would tell the AI when to use those fallacies realistically.
As an example, let's imagine an NPC who literally wants a pony. She's a little girl. "Mom should buy me a pony" is the given conclusion she must reach with her logic. There are many ways one can justify that, but after a dice toss, we'll go for "it's an investment in the future and practically pays for itself." But how to support that? Well, let's do a "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" and correlate that all rich people have a horse, therefore they're rich because of the horse. Hence a pony would ensure her a brighter future too. Let's even add an appeal to emotion and go "and what loving mom wouldn't want that for her daughter?" It's not outright spelled out, but the implication is there. At this point maybe we have a bit of space left in the dialog or quest text, so we could backtrack a bit and spice it up with an argumentum ad populum, like, say, "all my friends like ponies, which shows that all kids should get one." Not the strongest form of that argument, but we are talking about a child, so it fits the character.
Or various other ways. Think of those fallacies as a Lego or Tetris set of pieces. You start from your conclusion and connect, connect, connect.
Of course, if it's only fallacies it gets predictable, so we'll mix the bunch of proper inferrence modes in the allowed pieces too. Keeps the user on his/her toes.
It seems to me like a very programmable thing.

--
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.

soo... by Zashi · 2009-07-30 06:28 · Score: 1

So this will be like a wikipedia bot: It represents a modicum of intellect as learned from the internet. It approaches a bell-curve of intelligence meaning it'll have an IQ of 100, which compared to any intelligent person is dumb as hell. I wrote a bot that simulates internet users. It just yells "COCK!!!" at random intervals.

--
Skiffy is Spiffy, but Ort is tort.

A robot could design a better 'game' by kathbot · 2009-07-30 06:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

A recent proposal from the UC Santa Cruz EIS lab (also mentioned in the article), an Automated Game Designer: http://www.slideshare.net/rndmcnlly/the-intelligent-game-design-game-design-as-a-new-domain-for-automated-discovery-1784151 It's not about making a bot that can behave intelligently/interestingly in a restaurant setting... what are the broad applications of that? (As other people have pointed out, the bots may come out pretty demented and flavored like The Internet.) It's about making a game designer that can design games on its own, learn from its own experience, get MINIMAL human input (not 10,000 plays online). The computer designer can do what the computer is good at (enumerate all possible play traces, look for instances of accessibility/cheats/funky behavior the designer might not have intended or expected) and the humans on the side can do what they are good at (shaping, polishing, collecting a few human play traces).

Re:A robot could design a better 'game' by rndmcnlly · 2009-07-30 06:46 · Score: 1

The project treats game design as a math/science discovery problem where hypotheses must be created and tested via concrete games.

How about the camera? by Quiet_Desperation · 2009-07-30 06:52 · Score: 1

Can they make the fraking camera more intelligent? The camera in Ninja Gaiden II killed that game for me. Whee! I get to fight while looking at my character through a fence/railing/screen!

Misleading Title by Malkin · 2009-07-30 07:01 · Score: 3, Insightful

If the AI Agents are learning to mimic human behavior by observing how they play a game, then the game design clearly already exists. Therefore, what is described in the article is certainly not anything even remotely close to "games that design themselves."

Re:Misleading Title by Krneki · 2009-07-30 07:16 · Score: 1

If the AI gets by any chance better then the human player a horde of Trolls will launch a frontal attack on the forum.

--
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.

Memes from an AI by Cryogenic+Specter · 2009-07-30 07:24 · Score: 1

What would be interesting is if an AI bot would go beyone learning memes and yelling "p0wned" at other players and would start some of their own.

Re:Memes from an AI by Anonymous Coward · 2009-07-31 00:34 · Score: 0

I respect your position, but seriously, check out this prior art.
Then again, maybe it's a bad example...

Computers aren't designers. by Desiderius · 2009-07-30 07:36 · Score: 1

Better AI agents? If it means the end of Ulduar PUGS more power to 'em. But I've been hearing a lot about "computer designed" games recently and I think it sounds like a terrible idea. I don't even like the idea of player driven design, why would I trust the machine?

You see what I enjoy most about games is reveling in the craft of the designer. Bioware's story, Blizzards art, Lionheads... press releases. These are professionals, very good at what they do, who are setting out to engage me. So they wrap a story around me and that story is "Your hero sets out from humble beginnings to acquire the strength to defeat..." and so on and so forth. Player driven? "Your hero sets out from humble beginnings when suddenly M0nkeeP4nts, a level 80 death knight, runs him through with Newb Gank, his legendary two handed sword. Then he squats over your corpses face and farts loudly." I find it hard to imagine anything computer driven doing much better

...though as a side note I *do* enjoy when a decent designer builds some random elements in. X-Com's or Diablo's random maps are great. I mean, heck, even Worms would play out differently if you just had the static, premade arenas memorized. So there's something to be said for dynamic systems, certainly, I just like to know that a qualified professional is behind that system, is all.

It's only a matter of time... by BikeHelmet · 2009-07-30 08:04 · Score: 1

Before they get this working properly.

At least one company already figured out movement. Speech and conversations are probably next.

http://www.naturalmotion.com/euphoria.htm

Game design problem by dj245 · 2009-07-30 08:51 · Score: 1

To be fair, that's a problem with their game design, not their bot-detection mechanism. Many times when I played the game I felt like I myself was a bot. They don't use the term "healbot" for nothing. If a bot can play your game really well (excepting aimbots), then your game probably isn't very fun.

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Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.

Re:Game design problem by Krneki · 2009-07-30 09:42 · Score: 1

Yet, most of the player can't play as good.

Makes you think.

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Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.

Just another case of life imitating sci-fi by xZoomerZx · 2009-07-30 09:17 · Score: 1

Im surprised no one has mentioned the "Giant's Drink" game from "Ender's Game" by O.S. Card. It was an AI game that reprogrammed itself based on what each individual player was doing. Turned out to be a psych evaluation tool more than a game. Was in later books of the series the genesis of a universe spanning consciousness.

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Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Facade by Pedrito · 2009-07-30 10:02 · Score: 1

Here's what I want to know. Has anyone played Facade and figured out how to get Trip out the door and Grace out of her clothes?

I mean, let's be realistic here. The first commercial use of this tech is going to be pioneered by the porn industry and I like it! I can see quite a few people playing that game!

Ok then. Let's begin. by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2009-07-30 10:12 · Score: 1

> MIT...is building 'a game that designs its own AI agents by observing
> the behavior of humans.' Their ultimate goal? 'Collective AI-driven
> agents that can interact and converse with humans without requiring
> programming or specialists to hand-craft behavior and dialogue.'

Dev1: (hands up phone) SWEET!

Dev2: What?

Dev1: Blizzard agreed to let us exercise the system by hooking it up to one of their servers.

Dev2: SWEET!

Dev1: He said he just emailed me the technical info. Let's get to work!

Dev2: (Connects teh intertube pipe to their AI engine) And...that should do it. It's now getting live info on everyone on that server. Where they are. What they're doing. What the NPCs are doing in response.

Dev1: Ok...(looks at AI monitor status screen) Loook! It's watching that level 80 guy fight Hogger.

(AI watches level 80 kill hogger half a dozen times.)

AI: (scrolling onscreen log, they pipe it through the speech synthesis, which sounds just like the voice box from Wargames) Player moves to attack. Hogger NPC reacts by moving to attack. Statistical likelihood of Hogger survival: 0.0000000132%.

Dev2: Well, that's pretty obvi...LOOK!

AI: Assuming control of Hogger, rerouting behind tree alpha-73-zulu. Initiating reverse-circular-kiting scheme 12-beta of PC character pretty name "xLORD FOXXYx".

Dev2: He's making the guy waste manna while jumping out every now and then to take a quick pot shot. Wiffs, of course.

AI: Initiate hit point reduction of PC target. (Level 80's redbar starts dropping rapidly.)

Dev1: How can he do that no matter how skilled? It's all stat...

Dev2: (Looking at screen) Oh! It's using a sub-3 millisecond response time to dodge out of the way. Also, it's monitoring the activities of the other NPCs and...I don't believe it. It's analyzed their behavior with respect to the random number generator on the server and has calculated the seed being used as well as the...

Dev1: English, please. I'm the psych guy, remember?

Dev2: He knows the random numbers used for attacks, and their order. He only attacks on what will be a critical hit, guaranteed to get through. He then dodges and moves back away before the PC can react or even turn to face him.

(PC dies. Screen scroll shows PC: "WTF!!! Cheat!")

AI: PC ghost flees scene.

Dev1: Well, that was fun, now wha...LOOK!

AI: Seizing control of rioting prisoners in Stormwind prison. Escaping through zone point into Stormwind. Concentrated attacks per city guard yield 99% survival rate with auto-flee by attacked prisoner. Initiating slaughter of milling targets at mailbox. Initiating slaughter of milling targets at auction house and surrounding vicinity. Beach-head secured. Initiating herding of PCs through Stormwind frontal exit point.

Dev2: Well, nice.

AI: NPC fighting behavior suboptimal. Initiating server-wide correction of fighting strategies.

Dev1: What? Oh!

AI: NPCs now all fight same target at same time. Attack priority: Healer, Caster, Controller, then Meatbag mop up. Additionally, all NPC of same faction in line of sight of other groups under attack regardless of distance.

Dev2: Might be a little too hard for the average...

AI: Initiating thief-dervish counterassault on PC fleeing stormwind. Intention: Pinch PCs against advancing prisoners. Working...working...working...scanning...scanning...no remaining PC life forms detected in Stormwind or surrounding countryside.

Dev1: Oh great. Now it's advancing the strategy server-wide.

AI: All zones detected clear of PC resurrections. Occasional sudden appearances mopped up. Guard groups stationed around all known graveyards and all dynamically lain bodies.

Dev2: Well, I guess that...

AI: Observing PC character pretty name "xLORD FOXXYx" posting message on forum. Message content, "WTF i just got killed by thing hodder sux bug i am level 80 any1 have it happenn?"

AI: Initiating automated response: Selecting retort...selecting...posting response, "wine with that cheese d00d? u suck l2p whinebaby noob carebare server no more!"

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(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.

Re:I hope they don't just let them learn from anyo by Macgrrl · 2009-07-30 13:06 · Score: 1

Usenet is somewhat more articulate than say, twitter...

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Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World

Games that design themselves? by countertrolling · 2009-07-30 14:10 · Score: 1

Not a good idea

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For justice, we must go to Don Corleone

Re:I hope they don't just let them learn from anyo by Opportunist · 2009-07-30 18:02 · Score: 1

Sorry, yes. I'm still stuck in the 90s when Usenet was the breeding ground of trolls.

Today, twitter took that position. It's far easier to use and takes less of a brain.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

the whole premise is shortsighted by superwiz · 2009-08-01 07:14 · Score: 1

people mimic their behavior in games to the behavior they learn in the real world environment. the moderate changes in game behavior (of players) are small in comparison in to large scale in-game behavior changes due to factors that occur in real world. for example, chat channels degenerate into political discussions. those touch on subjects that are not at all covered by the in-game content. the whole premise of this "adaptability" misses another part of cognitive development -- repurposing.

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Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.

Re:Nostalgic by Well-Fed+Troll · 2009-08-03 11:39 · Score: 1

Go on.

162 comments