Next Gen Beautiful But Brainless?

Next Generation has up a short piece discussing a Guardian Interview with AI developer Steve Grand. Grand opines that next-gen graphics are deepening the uncanny valley. More than just plastic looks and inhuman faces, the weakness of game AI is increasingly becoming glaring compared to the graphical prowess in games. "AI isn't so much unappreciated as nonexistent. Most of what counts as AI in the games industry is actually a bunch of 'if/then' statements. If a computer character doesn't learn something for itself then the programmer must have told it what to do, and anything that does exactly what it's told and nothing else is not intelligent. This is changing, and neural networks and other learning systems are beginning to creep in. But games programmers tend to devalue the phrase 'artificial intelligence."

Re:The market will decide

[7Prime]

Me thinks the invisible hand needs a shiny new pair of handcuffs, from time to time, to teach it to stop groping people.

Re:"/."AI - non-existent

[MBGMorden]

You forgot "insensitive clod" you insensitive clod!

Work it from the other end

[WilyCoder]

Instead of making enemies smarter with better AI, lets make players dumber.

Should even things out quite nicely IMHO.