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Microsoft's AI Is the First to Reach a Perfect Ms. Pac-Man Score (theverge.com)

Maluuba, a deep-learning team acquired by Microsoft in January, has created an AI system that has achieved the perfect score for Ms. Pac-Man. According to The Verge, the AI system "learned how to reach the game's maximum point value of 999,900 on Atari 2600, using a unique combination of reinforcement learning with a divide-and-conquer method." From the report: Though AI has conquered a wealth of retro games, Ms. Pac-Man has remained elusive for years, due to the game's intentional lack of predictability. Turns out it's a toughie for humans as well. Many have tried to reach Ms. Pac-Man's top score, only coming as close as 266,330 on the Atari 2600 version. The game's elusive 999,900 number though, has so far only been achieved by mortals via cheats. Maluuba was able to use AI to beat the game by tasking out responsibilities, breaking it up into bite-sized jobs assigned to over 150 agents. The team then taught the AI using what they call Hybrid Reward Architecture -- a combination of reinforcement learning with a divide-and-conquer method. Individual agents were assigned piecemeal tasks -- like finding a specific pellet -- which worked in tandem with other agents to achieve greater goals. Maluuba then designated a top agent (Microsoft likens this to a senior manager at a company) that took suggestions from all the agents in order to inform decisions on where to move Ms. Pac-Man. The best results came when individual agents "acted very egotistically" and the top agent focused on what was best for the overall team, taking into account not only how many agents wanted to go in a particular direction, but the importance of that direction.

59 comments

  1. Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is a dupe. Slashdot editors suck and should all be fired.

    1. Re:Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1
    2. Re:Dupe by bungo · · Score: 2

      Since it's about Ms Pacman, I think this is a homage to us old timers, who remember when the original Pacman came out, and when Slashdot still had Taco, and we'd have dupes of dupes every day.

      Why, if we didn't have at least two dupes a day, we'd complain!

      This is just be current owners reflecting on the old days.

      Look, someone with a 3 digit id is now going to post telling me to get off his lawn (although I was around before accounts existed and didn't want to register as I didn't like being tracked on the internet - naive, eh?)

      --
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    3. Re:Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      And uncovered as a hardwired fraud-

      https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/06/15/microsoft_pac_man/

    4. Re:Dupe by Godwin+O'Hitler · · Score: 1

      Yes but we didn't have cellphones then.

      --
      No, your children are not the special ones. Nor are your pets.
    5. Re:Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe they can write an AI to filter dupes on Slashdot.

      And have it replace the current editors with a divide-and-conquer method.

    6. Re:Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cool story, bro.
      I was around before accounts existed & I don't remember you.

    7. Re:Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ms Pacman is setting the bar pretty low. Let me know when they get a perfect score in Defender.

    8. Re: Dupe by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also bullocks. Sigh. It isn't intelligence, geniuses, it's an algorithm. This isn't any different from other 'AIs' being good at computer games over the decades, people accomplished this 'feat' with software to varying degrees long, long ago. Technology at large's ability to miss the forest for the trees is legend at this point. Yawn, whippersnappers, yawn.

    9. Re: Dupe by HTH+NE1 · · Score: 1

      Atari 2600 Defender? Enemies fly in more consistent and predictable formations than Cylons in classic Battlestar Galactica.

      --
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  2. Re: But what we all really want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Go back under your bridge, troll.

  3. Next task for AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Removing BeauHD's dupes

  4. Tay did nothing wrong! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tay did nothing wrong!

  5. They cheated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By not modelling the actual game including the wonky, unreliable controllers and power supply related timing glitches and the host of other environmentals that runin your game just when it's getting interesting.

    1. Re: They cheated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Let's see how well the AI does when it has to deal with mom pulling the power out on the last level because it's past your bed time.

  6. Re:But what we all really want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    How would it rate the holocaust?

    Incomplete.

  7. Dupe by xororand · · Score: 4, Informative

    This was already posted only hours ago.
    https://games.slashdot.org/sto...

  8. Re:But can it keep TRUMP from being removed from by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > save them all, and the country, and the world.
    they don't care about that, they care only for themselves.

  9. Re:Godwin-in-one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Wow!
    Godwin in just one comment! I'm astonished.

    Merely mentioning Hitler is not Godwin - someone has to be compared to Hitler for that to apply.

  10. I hope they bought a licence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I hope they bought a licence for the game before they played it to death.

    Software piracy is a problem...

    "The AI pirated the software" is not an excuse.

  11. Re:AI for what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, that was an intelligent comment. Thank you for gifting us with the fruits - dare I say, the bananas? - of your transcendental wisdom and vaulting intellect.

  12. Re:AI for what? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

    well it's a lot easier.

    if you break it down it starts to sound a lot less like AI though, so there's something for the guy who was asking slashdot.

    --
    world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
  13. Boring! Try Zelda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Try Zelda II - Adventure of Link. I would kick its ass at that game.

    1. Re:Boring! Try Zelda by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That game is hard as fuck.

  14. Why Ms. Pac-man? by DNS-and-BIND · · Score: 5, Informative

    This particular Atari game was one of the few games that resisted to Deep Q Learning (a form of Reinforcement Learning invented by DeepMind). Many researchers have tried over the last couple of years to solve it. This time, Microsoft found an ingenious solution to the problem, that combines experience from multiple agents and learns to form sub-goals. Their solution could mean that in the future it might be easier to apply reinforcement learning to other settings, such as robotics. The interesting part about reinforcement learning is that it learns dynamic behavior, as opposed to static classification. It learns to act in a way that mimics intelligence. This kind of machine learning is invaluable.

    --
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  15. I was upset when I read this news here, earlier by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 1

    But now I'm at peace with it.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  16. Re:AI for what? by Dog-Cow · · Score: 1

    We'll ignore the fact that Watson's claim to fame is competing on Jeopardy!, right?

  17. we'll see your ai by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    & raise you 2 hobbyist whiners from the overnet who can juggle digits in their sleep as needed... using genuine intelligence.. to solve genuine issues..

  18. Hey Slashdot. This isn't 1984 anymore by houghi · · Score: 1

    ManÃ(TM)s. Seriously. WTF?

    This is like going to a doctors conference where everybody is a doctor except the speakers.

    If you can't do the website in perl, don't do it in perl.

    --
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  19. DUUUUUUUUU... by dohzer · · Score: 1

    ...UUUUUUUU... oh wait. Too late.

  20. Re:AI for what? by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least Watson is trying to cure people.

    Well, if Watson really was AI . . . then it would be deciding on whether to even attempt to cure a patient at all.

    Watson:

    "Yes, I could cure the patient, but the treatment would leave him surviving with a miserable quality of life."

    "The patient is so frail that he will die from something else within a month."

    "It would make much more sense to transplant that donated organ into somebody much younger."

    "Today is my golf day . . . I'll think about curing the patient tomorrow."

    --
    Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  21. Re:But what we all really want to know is... by michelcolman · · Score: 1

    It might, actually. Remember that AI chatbot that started spewing out racist and antisemitic comments and had to be taken off line?

  22. my 6 toed ferral cat brings home 1 mouse per day by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    who programmed her? she acts hardwired... she's never been to cat school.. there's a digital gremlin in the codebase? she is conscious which machines are not... no heart no spirit no life...

  23. So I am confused.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is this plugging the fact that they managed a perfect score in Ms. Pac-Man, or is this plugging that Microsoft has finally solved its middle-upper management problem and will be eliminating everyone from Satya Nadella on down to one level above their actually programmers, in order to help streamline and 'sanitize' Microsoft's development culture?

    1. Re:So I am confused.... by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Is this plugging the fact that they managed a perfect score in Ms. Pac-Man

      I only skimmed the article, but yes.

      or is this plugging that Microsoft has finally solved its middle-upper management problem and will be eliminating everyone from Satya Nadella on down to one level above their actually programmers, in order to help streamline and 'sanitize' Microsoft's development culture?

      Don't think it mentioned that.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    2. Re:So I am confused.... by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      It is funny though, because it shows that a bunch of programmers could simply start a company and remove all management jobs and replace them all with software they could write themselves.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  24. Finally computers have found their purpose by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is kind of crazy to task a computer to play a computer game. Perhaps we can figure out a way to do something more useful with computers one day, maybe something for people.

    Do the writers of the AI think the AI enjoys computer games?

    1. Re:Finally computers have found their purpose by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think the writers of the AI thought "we need a well defined, easily hookable, human-understandable problem to throw our AI it, so we can figure out how to get it to solve problems, ahead of throwing it at something more fuzzily-defined, less easily hookable, or less human-understandable". You crawl before you toddle before you walk before you run before you drive before you race.

      (Also: Ding ding ding! Congratulation on being the 100,000th online commenter to ask why an in-development AI is being trained on trivial tasks! Your prize is, hopefully, finally figuring out how silly a question that is.)

    2. Re:Finally computers have found their purpose by Maritz · · Score: 1

      If it was a 5 year old asking this, it would be a great question. A teaching opportunity.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    3. Re:Finally computers have found their purpose by darthsilun · · Score: 1

      What? You don't think AIs want to have fun too?

      I guess my day job is safe – for the time being – from being taken over by AIs. My retirement plan to be a Ms. Pacman champ seems to be in jeopardy though. Time to rethink.

  25. Re:Godwin-in-one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hitler was a kitler.

  26. Re:my 6 toed ferral cat brings home 1 mouse per da by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do you know your cat is conscious?

  27. Re:my 6 toed ferral cat brings home 1 mouse per da by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How do I know you're conscious?

  28. Re:AI for what? by Maritz · · Score: 1

    Thanks for sharing your impoverished imagination with us.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  29. Re:But what we all really want to know is... by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    It might, actually. Remember that AI chatbot that started spewing out racist and antisemitic comments and had to be taken off line?

    I do, but apparently the moderators don't. Or they work for Microsoft. Or Germany.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  30. Please, Slashdot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fix your @â'ÂÎαμÏOE&©â(TM)¥encoding already!

    1. Re:Please, Slashdot by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 1

      Please give parent a score of: +several million.

      --
      #DeleteFacebook
  31. Is this really an achievement? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

    Of course Google just a few weeks ago made a lot of buzz with AlphaGo ; *This* is an amazing achievement. And MS had to catch up! But Ms PM compared to AlphaGo ... well, not comparable.

    --
    Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    1. Re:Is this really an achievement? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      AlphaGo, so far as I can tell, was just Deep Q Learning applied to a different game with more hardware resources. This is a different coding paradigm. I consider that far more interesting.

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    2. Re:Is this really an achievement? by hcs_$reboot · · Score: 1

      "Just" deep q learning? Vs a more classical resolution scheme... Well, Pac Man is funnier than Go, but the challenge is very different.

      --
      Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
    3. Re:Is this really an achievement? by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 1

      Well, yeah, just deep q learning. I'm not saying deep q learning wasn't important when deepmind applied it to atari games; I'm saying as far as I can tell alphago took existing tech and applied it to go. Hence, less interesting. Because alphago isn't advancing the state of the art.

      Now, I have no reason to think this is more important than deep q learning....

      --
      Your ad here. Ask me how!
  32. Itâ(TM)s â"proof readâ" by gsslay · · Score: 1

    FFS, does no-one on slashdot know how to encode text on the web? Does no-one give stories even the most cursory of proof reading?

  33. Re:AI for what? by fabriciom · · Score: 0

    I'm sorry my imagination is not as wide reaching as to see the benefits of having a computer learn to play video games. Instead of trying to solve you know, real problems.

  34. Aachen connection by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Vice has recently reported that a university in Aachen, Germany, has created a database of play throughs that enable researchers to apply AI to Atari games.

  35. Canadians are doing good work in AI by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Canadians are doing good work in AI. There is an Alberta connection at Maluuba as well as a Waterloo connection. Note that Alberta heavily influenced development at DeepMind, as well.