DailyDirt: Computers Are Learning How To Play More Video Games, But They'll Never Appreciate A Good Game?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Researchers can program computers to play all kinds of games and even beat the best humans at them. So far, we're not worried about AI that can beat us at chess or Jeopardy, but maybe we'll be more worried when a computer can program another computer to play chess at a grandmaster level. Luckily, there's at least one billionaire willing to chip in a few million bucks to try to keep Terminators from destroying humanity.

• Google DeepMind has created software that can play old Atari games without humans teaching it how to play -- and the AI plays 22 out of 49 games better than expert human players. Those Atari games are more difficult than you might think, but it's not hard to imagine that humans will be no match for AI playing Pac-man in the near future. [url]
• A Civilization V match pitted 42 computer-controlled players against each other. It wasn't an endless match (sorry, no Wargames conclusion), and a winner of this "Battle Royale" emerged after 179 turns. [url]
• Flappy Bird is a pretty hard game for humans to play, but a robot can play it without getting tired or frustrated. It's not exactly a breakthrough in robotics, but this bot demonstrates a big difference in how computers play video games. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: ai, artificial intelligence, atari, civilization v, elon musk, flappy bird, game algorithms, machine learning, robotics, video games, wargames
Companies: deepmind, google