Gamemakers Inject AI To Develop More Lifelike Characters (wired.com) 39
moon_unit2 writes: The AI technique that DeepMind used to teach machines to play Atari can now bring new video game characters to life. WIRED reports that researchers at Electronic Arts and the University of British Columbia in Canada developed a reinforcement learning method for animating humanoid characters. The approach feeds on data gathered through motion capture, but then uses reinforcement learning to have a computer work out how to move a soccer character so that it achieves a particular objective, like running towards a ball or shimming past defenders. As the article notes, this is part of a wave of AI techniques that promise to revolutionize game development in coming years.
They inject AI? (Score:2)
Well, what do they inject them with, ketamine?
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Disinfectant, of course. Do try to keep up!
Man.... I got hooked on injecting disinfectant and it almost killed me.
I'm all clean now, tho.
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I see what you did there.
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Or you could become a teacher in Japan (Kancho [wikipedia.org]).
Here we go again (Score:2)
Re:Here we go again (Score:5, Informative)
"Cleverly crafted algorithms" qualify as AI.
AI, as a technical term, does not mean "intelligent machine," or "thinking machine." It refers to a broad set of clever algorithms that do things which, in other contexts, generally require intelligence to do. It is called "artificial" intelligence precisely because it is "not real" intelligence.
People keep saying "there is no such thing as true AI" because they are using the term "AI" wrong. They are using it to mean "real intelligence in a computer." But that is not what it means. It is true that there are no intelligent machines. But there are algorithms that are correctly categorized as "artificial intelligence" algorithms.
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I get what you're saying. I understand it, but it doesn't change my understanding of AI-- it just clarifies why certain people use AI to mean "cleverly crafted algorithms". Consider:
Step 1: Recognize that science fiction and scientific postulation have developed, over decades, and expectation for the term "Artificial Intelligence" (AI). That expectation is independent, evolving, and unique thought similar to that of a human. Or at the very least, an smart primate.
Step 2: Realize that co-opting terms have pr
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Step 1: Recognize that science fiction and scientific postulation have developed, over decades, and expectation for the term "Artificial Intelligence" (AI). That expectation is independent, evolving, and unique thought similar to that of a human. Or at the very least, an smart primate.
Oh please, for most of its history AI has simply meant "intelligence substitute" like for games basically any algorithm to make a player, enemy or monster appear sentient. I can't remember exactly when we started using the term AI instead of "the computer is so dumb" but I never saw any disconnect between that and Data on Star Trek, he was just a really good AI. The only reason AI means what it means today is constantly moving goal posts, because we're not happy that machines can beat us at chess. If it can
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Just like the term "hacker" was co-opted, it's current use no longer refl
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Ah, no, the original meaning of the term "AI," as coined by John Mcarthy in the 50s, and used in university courses on AI ever since then, was as a broad term that covered many different types of clever algorithms.
You, in fact, have it exactly backwards.
Re:Here we go again (Score:5, Interesting)
What's sort of funny is that in game development, we have a different definition (surprise surprise) of "AI" than just about anyone else. We call any sort of control over a computer agent "AI", no matter how primitive those algorithms are. So, implementing pathfinding would generally fall under the heading of "AI programming", simply because it's code required for getting a computer-controlled character to walk around the world. Same with a simple state machine that controls primitive behaviors (which is what 99% of videogame "AI" mostly is).
My guess is that when referring to these algorithms internally, game developers are likely to refer to them as "machine learning" algorithms or something else, as otherwise, there's going to be a hell of a lot of confusion when trying to discuss this stuff.
Incidentally, most game designers seem to have little interest in actual AI to control enemy characters, or even anything smart enough to be too unpredictable. Because real AI is chaotic and hard to fine-tune. Designers want to be able to tweak things in a spreadsheet. Same with artists and procedural content generation tools. It's usually programmers who get all excited about using fancy algorithms to do things, because that's the world we live in. We can occasionally convince them its worthwhile if it does things they can't easily do, or don't care to do, of course, but otherwise, there's a pretty strong resistance to any tools which don't give them very fine-grained control over the final results.
Videogame A.I. (Score:2)
https://www.penny-arcade.com/c... [penny-arcade.com]
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What's sort of funny is that in game development, we have a different definition (surprise surprise) of "AI" than just about anyone else.
When you guys get AI good enough to create more lifelike characters, please license it to Hollywood. TV and movies could do with more lifelike characters.
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I get it though, hackers are people who do cool tricks, not the ones who break into computers. I lost that fight, too.
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I am not trying to get the world to re-define anything, as my definition can be found right in the dictionary [merriam-webster.com]:
1 : a branch of computer science dealing with the simulation of intelligent behavior in computers
2 : the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behavior
(emphasis mine).
Anyway, my definition is also the one that has been taught in computer science courses for decades. Yours is the "re-definition."
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Anyway, my definition is also the one that has been taught in computer science courses for decades. Yours is the "re-definition."
Nah, you're wrong here, "cleverly crafted algorithms" have been called AI in computer science for decades. Since at least the 70s.
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When you ask AI to make more lifelike characters.. (Score:2)
... you find out AI thinks Toy Story renders look more real than "real people"
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... you find out AI thinks Toy Story renders look more real than "real people"
Well, it'll believe anything you tell it to. I just recently read a paper about the ImageNet data set and it turns out a lot of the current failures (88.5% Top-1 matches out of 1000 classes) is because the crowdsourced images actually contain multiple objects and even for single object photos the labels are ambiguous. My guess is that someone will find a clever way to use a few "perfect" images like an apple on a white background to say that image exclusively contains a complete, unobstructed apple while t
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What about copiers? (Score:1)
We can't even make copiers which detect a piece of paper is on the glass unless you do the Charleston. How about we work on that before worrying about developing computer characters.
Re:What about copiers? (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, as a videogame developer, I can certainly see how I'd be expected to fix an occasional problem by a random piece of hardware that has nothing at all to do with my chosen profession. I'll be sure to let all my colleagues know to stop all AI-related work until the copier problem is fixed.
I'll be excepting the same courtesy from you, halting all work in your chosen profession until the "I haven't used my inkjet in forever and now the printing is streaked" problem is fixed to my satisfaction.
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"I haven't used my inkjet in forever and now the printing is streaked" problem is fixed to my satisfaction.
You got lucky, if you'd had an HP printer the ink would have all dried out.
Well... (Score:2)