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An AI Learned Magic: the Gathering, Now Creates Thousands of New Cards
merbs writes: Reed Milewicz, a computer science researcher, wowed a major online Magic: The Gathering forum when he posted the results of an experiment to "teach" a weak AI to auto-generate Magic cards. Milewicz had trained a deep, recurrent neural network—a kind of statistical machine learning model designed to emulate the neural networks of animal brains—to "learn" the text of every Magic card currently in existence. Then he had it generate thousands of its own.
He shared a number of the bizarre "cards" his program had come up with, replete with their properly fantastical names ("Shring the Artist," "Mided Hied Parira's Scepter") and freshly invented abilities ("fuseback"). Players devoured—and cheered—the results.
He shared a number of the bizarre "cards" his program had come up with, replete with their properly fantastical names ("Shring the Artist," "Mided Hied Parira's Scepter") and freshly invented abilities ("fuseback"). Players devoured—and cheered—the results.
Bear with me, I know pretty much nothing about Magic The Gathering, Pokeymen, Dungeons and Dragons, and all of the other games that the guys who work on the servers and the network are always talking to one another about. As a programmer I don't have free time for games so I'm in the dark about them.
Well I've always heard that these kind of games are classified as being for "social rejects" only. They don't garner much interest from the less-intellectual people out there. I'm not passing any judgment, because I know nothing about these games. I only know what I've heard from others.
Are the opinions about these games changing? Are they starting to see more mainstream acceptance as games that "normal" people frequently play?