I've never really liked calling a Game's 'AI' Artificial Intelligence for one reason - they don't learn. It's always seemed more of what I'd call Simulated Intelligence. There's always a stopping point, even if they train the computer to play themselves. A point where it's not learning anymore and the computer only seems to be acting intelligent.
From the review, it seems this books touches on this a bit. Hopefully more game developers will start putting additional effort into making dynamic, learning Artificial Intelligence components to their games.
Of course, part of the problem is also building the AI to act Human. Humans make mistakes, and so should the computer. In warfare, there's always been that element of random chance where you can capitalize on an enemy's mistakes. Take in factos like morale, confidence, etc. It's no fun to play against a perfect oponent all the time:p
I think the first game company to get this careful balance right is going to be laughing all the way to the bank.
The Plasmons? I thought the Glutons erradicated them! I hear the Fruitons are the longstanding enemies of the Glutons and are teaming up with the Clapons to attempt revenge for the savage slaughtering of innocent Plasmons...
It really makes me wonder... how many of these 'safety' problems have manifested themselves before. I have a strong feeling that the heat shield on the shuttle is more robust than they make it out to be. I refuse to believe that in all 100+ missions, gap fillers and thermal blankets have never shaken loose. Look at it this way, it took a chunk of foam blasting a hole in the heat shield before it failed.
Someone's gotta speak up for the poor admins. Not all of them really are morons for not patching. There are cases where the patch breaks more than it fixes. In these cases, it's often more economical to just leave the vulnerability there (hey, at least you know about it) than to try to patch it. SQL Slammer caused some serious problems with IIS because the 'patch' for the bug it exploited was part of a large update that required a lot of man-hours to clean up after.
Of course, there are plenty of moron admins out there too, I wouldn't want them to feel overlooked... >.>
I remember hearing stories from a professor in college about the Russian space program. Supposedly at one point they had their electricity shut off (forgot to pay the bill...?) and were tinkering on their rockets by the light of propane lanterns. At another point, a serious rat infestation was discovered in the wiring in their version of mission control.
And let's not forget poor Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the pilot of the first Soyuz-1. His capsule's parachute malfunctioned and he hit the ground at ~500 mph. http://www.space.edu/projects/book/chapter20.html
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...lost productivity from Solitaire and Minesweeper. Yeah, it was in earlier versions, but Windows 95 made it even easier...
I've never really liked calling a Game's 'AI' Artificial Intelligence for one reason - they don't learn. It's always seemed more of what I'd call Simulated Intelligence. There's always a stopping point, even if they train the computer to play themselves. A point where it's not learning anymore and the computer only seems to be acting intelligent.
:p
From the review, it seems this books touches on this a bit. Hopefully more game developers will start putting additional effort into making dynamic, learning Artificial Intelligence components to their games.
Of course, part of the problem is also building the AI to act Human. Humans make mistakes, and so should the computer. In warfare, there's always been that element of random chance where you can capitalize on an enemy's mistakes. Take in factos like morale, confidence, etc. It's no fun to play against a perfect oponent all the time
I think the first game company to get this careful balance right is going to be laughing all the way to the bank.
The Plasmons? I thought the Glutons erradicated them! I hear the Fruitons are the longstanding enemies of the Glutons and are teaming up with the Clapons to attempt revenge for the savage slaughtering of innocent Plasmons...
It really makes me wonder... how many of these 'safety' problems have manifested themselves before. I have a strong feeling that the heat shield on the shuttle is more robust than they make it out to be. I refuse to believe that in all 100+ missions, gap fillers and thermal blankets have never shaken loose. Look at it this way, it took a chunk of foam blasting a hole in the heat shield before it failed.
Someone's gotta speak up for the poor admins. Not all of them really are morons for not patching. There are cases where the patch breaks more than it fixes. In these cases, it's often more economical to just leave the vulnerability there (hey, at least you know about it) than to try to patch it. SQL Slammer caused some serious problems with IIS because the 'patch' for the bug it exploited was part of a large update that required a lot of man-hours to clean up after. Of course, there are plenty of moron admins out there too, I wouldn't want them to feel overlooked... >.>
I remember hearing stories from a professor in college about the Russian space program. Supposedly at one point they had their electricity shut off (forgot to pay the bill...?) and were tinkering on their rockets by the light of propane lanterns. At another point, a serious rat infestation was discovered in the wiring in their version of mission control.
And let's not forget poor Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov, the pilot of the first Soyuz-1. His capsule's parachute malfunctioned and he hit the ground at ~500 mph. http://www.space.edu/projects/book/chapter20.html
Yeah, I'll wait for the movie...