AI Takes On Pac-Man

mikejuk writes "AI takes on Pac-Man — well, in fact it plays both sides. An annual competition challenges participants to write Java programs to control Pac-Man or the ghosts. It might not be chess, but it pits machine against machine, with algorithms going head-to-head as the AI ghosts try and eat AI Pac-Man."

Comments

Re:Already Over

[ByOhTek]

That's slashdot for you. "Olds for geeks, stuff that probably doesn't matter."

Re:Pac-Man is too hard

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet here's an AI that can apparently beat it..... what does that say about my friends and coworkers?

That apparently, there are some things computers are better at than people?

QUICK! What's the 761st decimal place of pi?
Does it make some statement about you that a computer can calculate the above several of orders of magnitude faster than you?

Re:Pac-Man is too hard

[19061969]

I guess it would say that your friends and coworkers are thick as shit or really aren't that interested in video games.

But then, you can also ask the AI, "where's the salt?" or other some such question and wait for a sensible response. Or ask it to catch a ball. Or navigate its way through a town, find a nice birthday present, bake a cake, create spontaneous conversations with strangers... Lots of things that I'm sure it would fail at.

Re:Pac-Man is too hard

[Raenex]

It always amazes me when I show Pac-man to various people and they "It's too hard." And yet here's an AI that can apparently beat it..... what does that say about my friends and coworkers?

What does this dumb comment say about you?

Re:Already Over

[Anonymous Coward]

why the fuck? pacman can be played "perfectly" because the ghosts always move the same depending on what the player is doing. that's how some people can play it till they drop, it needs no thinking. and if you're writing control code for the ghosts then it's bye bye for pacman no matter how pacman is controlled.

you know what's a real challange? writing a cs bot that passes as a human. no need to wait for pesky competition either.

Re:Pac-Man is too hard

[elsurexiste]

It always amazes me when I show Pac-man to various people and they "It's too hard." And yet here's an AI that can apparently beat it..... what does that say about my friends and coworkers?

I can't beat level 3, yet I'm sure I can program an AI that could play better than me. What that's supposed to mean? :)

Re:Pac-Man is too hard

[AchilleTalon]

AI is not about finding an algorithm to beat the machine, it should be about an algorithm that can learn while playing an improving itself until it can beat the machine. This is AI. Finding and programming an algorithm beating the machine isn't AI, it is real intelligence since the programmer has done all the work until his/her algorithm effectively beat the machine.

Re:am i the only one who misread it as al-Pacman?

[hairyfeet]

Hell I'd just be happy for game AI that doesn't blow rancid chunks before falling over and dying. Any game designers here? For the love of kittens and everything decent in the world STOP WITH THE BAD AI as it just ruins a game, it really really does.

There was a time, a short time mind you, but still a time, along about Far Cry I and Fear I where I was thinking "hey, finally! Thank fricking God! These guys are trying to flank me! They aren't lining up to be shot! Woo hoo, I'm having fun!" but then developers went back to caring only about bling and burst my little happiness bubble. Play RF:Guerrilla? You will spend most of your time shooting the good guys as they all can't wait to run right out in front of you while you are trying to fire. For the hell of it I put in the explosive pistol mod so I can just stand there and watch them ragdoll each other since none of them have the sense not to fire if their friends step in front of them.

So maybe stuff like TFA will help them learn how not to design dumb as stumps AI, hell if I know. Everyone talks about "realism" but nothing completely blows realism right out the airlock like watching a bad guy bang himself against a wall over and over again, or having them take "cover" behind the EXACT SAME CHEST HIGH WALL where I've piled three dozen of the friends in a kill box because their fricking heads stick out, or the worst having AI "help" that don't know which end of the gun to point at the enemy and who promptly run out into the open with such inane stupidity it seems like a race to see whether you or the bad guy will cap them first.

So please game devs, for the love of titties and beer and all that is good and right in this world, just stop okay? Nobody is asking for Einstein here, just not so damned retarded that they make Forest Gump look like Carl Sagan.