Most games use PI rather than AI in my opinion. PI being Programmed Intelligence. I prefer to use the term AI for things where the solution is machine learned from example data rather than directly programmed. Like Drivatars in Forza:
Previous AI challenges were driving and shooting with a Tank vs another Tank or the more complex controlling a group of soldiers vs another group.
Both only required basic coding algorithms to make for a decent competition entrant.
Neither could be classed as IBM Watson level AI.
However both were behavioural agent problems that we in game development class as AI, even though most game AI is probably around the slime mould level of intelligence and complexity.
IMHO any system that solves or attempts to solve a complex problem is somewhere on the scale of AI.
Most of the time we attach the AI term to agent based systems and this is probably our Human Centric thinking kicking in.
As a thought experiment and to try and break our Human Centric thinking, is Life an AI system?
Life uses a set of basic programming codes RNA and DNA then tries different solutions to maximise it’s growth using Darwinian evolution. The interplay of lifeforms creates a more complex web that has filled every habitable zone on Earth. Life on Earth is probably the most complex thing within a few light years (side though what if the sun could be alive).
On the face of it life is just lots of self centred plants and critters at war with each other for resources, however a complex web or balance emerges from simple things interacting.
Now ask any AI researcher what level their AI is at compared to life and they would probably tell you they are around the small mammal stage e.g. mice/cat.
Or look at the classic computer cellular automation life, where even a simple set of rules can generate complex patterns and behaviours.
My point is don’t be so narrow minded about AI, if you can only use it to make a better NPC, you could end up missing out on a galaxy of possibilities.
With a galaxy of possibilities I’m guaranteed to miss out on most of them
AI on the machine learning scale isn’t something I’ve looked into much, I’m happy enough working on the PI scale of things.
This says it all the field of AI expands and improves, solved problems they are no longer considered AI.
So if the field of game level design has not been solved then it is still a field of AI research, this of course is good for level designers as their job has not been automated yet!
I would say much lower than Mice, as mice exhibit social behaviours can solve mazes and physics puzzles. They can also learn from feedback and other mice.
Most game NPC’s have a very simple behavioural tree with little to no learning ability.
I don’t care. AI in games is exactly what I listed.
As for “smarter than mice” - as far as I’m aware we don’t have any technology capable of producing a system even remotely comparable to biological brain. The best attempt so far was openworm project which attempted to simulate C.Elegans using mere 5.5 teraflops of computing power. C.Elegans has 160 neurons total. A mouse has 4 million neurons. A human has has 86 000000000 neurons and up. We will be able to have a stab at it when exascale computing will evailable with Petabytes of RAM on it.
So your poll options are nonsense. It is like asking “Is human more similar to a bar of Iron, bar or lead or a cubic meter of argon”?.
This was a fun read. Tesler’s Theorem: “AI is whatever hasn’t been done yet.”
But really. If we call whatever we have now AI, how are we going to refer to the next big thing that comes out? Should we group it with pleb s**t that came out yesterday?
The main problem with getting human level AI is low computational power and low memory volume that is currently available. Exascale computers are only planned at the moment. When you’ll have openworm running on a wristworth, then you’ll have a chance of getting human-level AI.
For the context of designing video games, there are two kinds of AI used:
Game AI - these are structures of code that can give a decent approximation of intelligence without using too much CPU time. The efficient nature of these routines make them ideal for using in games, but these are not usually capable of learning.
Academic AI - these are structure of code that can create math formulas based on sets of data. There are some cases in game design where these can be useful, but these often use too much CPU time during the training phase to be used in games.
Neither of those types of AI are easily judged as a specific level of intelligence that would fit into the poll you posted in this thread, but these are the types of AI that are used when developing games so these are relevant to this forum.
As a general rule, the lowest level of AI that can yield a decent experience for the user is the right amount to implement. Any more than that, and you are wasting CPU time which would lead to a less impressive game. Players don’t care how things are implemented. Players only care about how the experience feels to them while they play the game.
AI is so broad. For games I’ve always seen it as behaviors. Not limited to characters though. If something is collecting data and then using that data to make decisions IMO it is a form of AI regardless if it is being labeled PI or ML.
And that is pretty generalized too but that is how I see it. Each character will have some form of AI (well we know they don’t always… sometimes it is simply follow this path, turn around and go over there… stay on the nodes… this is not AI to me… but) the overall higher level mechanism controlling when the character breaks out of canned patrol state and investigates to find the source of a noise or identifies the player and engages the player in combat… this higher decision making system is an AI in games.
Weather systems can fall under this classification as well. Again is it all prescripted… precanned linear or is there decision making involved?
I mentioned PI as I see a real difference between a decision system based on observed patterns and a system that looks for those patterns to figure out how to make decisions. Does the AI Effect mark the moment when those patterns are found and the system changes from an AI one to a PI one?
if (ai == decisionMaking) {
Print("I'm an AI script!!");
} else {
Print("I'm a PI script!");
}
