{"id":23428,"date":"2020-02-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-12T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.helpshift.com\/the-link-between-ai-and-gaming\/"},"modified":"2022-11-22T16:04:18","modified_gmt":"2022-11-23T00:04:18","slug":"the-link-between-ai-and-gaming","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.helpshift.com\/the-link-between-ai-and-gaming\/","title":{"rendered":"The Link Between AI and Gaming"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
While battling enemies in Call of Duty, it\u2019s easy to feel that artificial intelligence (AI) is controlling the game and anticipating your every move. Your opponents weave and evade attacks, throw grenades and coordinate with their colleagues to give your soldiers a hard time. Although this may feel edge-of-your-seat real, the AI behind it is actually rather rudimentary. While AI is fast developing, we\u2019re still in the early days, with deep learning (a type of AI that aims to mimic human thinking) only recently entering commercial game development. This is the same technology that underpins self-driving cars and natural language processing (NLP). With this and other advances in AI on the horizon, our current-day games will eventually feel as basic as a game of snake. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
AI and gaming have a long history together. One where AI, particularly, has reaped more benefits. Many AI algorithms have been trained through games. This includes DeepMind<\/a>, which has created a so-far unbeatable AlphaGo program. Researchers like to pit their AI against ever more sophisticated video games as they are more predictable compared to the real-world, where interactions with humanity can be inconsistent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Indeed, self-driving cars have been exploring the roads of Grand Theft Auto V<\/a> for this exact reason. Offering a realistic simulation of New York and Los Angeles, the game drew attention from Intel Labs and the Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. They used it to build algorithms for the self-driving sector. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The rule and reward systems of games offer the perfect environment to train an AI in. It enables researchers to benchmark the intelligence level of their AI. But, despite this symbiotic relationship, AI researchers have been less focused on creating an AI that can make games more dynamic and realistic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It doesn\u2019t help that a lot of AI in video games are, for want of a better phrase, \u2018smoke and mirrors\u2019. That is, game developers have become exceptionally good at using limited AI to create scenarios that feel completely real and random. The AI is just sophisticated enough to make a player feel like they are battling an intelligent machine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s because a lot of the developers\u2019 end-goals are fulfilled by basic AI. Compare the goombas in the original Super Mario Bros. to the bosses in Dark Souls and you can see how far developers have made AI stretch. Dark Soul bosses are certainly more intelligent than goombas, but their patterns can still be learned and overcome. They are predictable, albeit with unforgiving speed and a rulebook of human mistakes to exploit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most common AI tricks in gaming is the Finite State Machine (FSM) algorithm<\/a>. Game developers rely on pre-programming variables like common human mistakes, to make a character and game feel more real. In The Sims, for example, the characters will do different things based on objects and the environment. Specific reactions are programmed for each anticipated situation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Such tricks have still resulted in unintended consequences, that, luckily, didn\u2019t disrupt gameplay too much. A notable anecdote came from Red Dead Redemption 2, where players can interact with non-playable characters in many different ways. Reactions differ according to your clothes (and if they\u2019re blood-stained), to your weapon, and even your hat. One vi<\/a>r<\/a>al video<\/a> from the game saw a player firing a warning shot into the air, only to accidentally kill a bird flying overhead. This created a situation that few could believe, nor recreate themselves because of the complexity of the game\u2019s world and its many intertwining rules and interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If game developers can achieve much with little, that begs the question, what can they do with Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), which can understand or learn any intellectual task that a human being can? Well, the answer (rather anti-climatically) might be very little. The issue is, with AGI that adapts games to players, there is less that a developer can control. Game developers prefer predictable actions. It tends to make the player experience better. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Players don\u2019t always want a non-player character (NPC) to act unpredictably. It distracts from the game. Similarly, imagine if a boss went rogue because an AI learned that a player had done the level before, was in a different emotional state, or was using a certain weapon. In short, letting an AI loose on a game might work in research environments but it will do little to improve gameplay.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSmoke and mirrors<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Pre-programming reactions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
The role of Artificial General Intelligence<\/h3>\n\n\n\n