First, i would like to apologize, crap might be to strong of a word. My intention was not to insult anyone.
i would like to apologize for taking this thread off topic, so this will be my final response on this subject.
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Originally posted by Mecron@May 15 2006, 07:25 PM
crap?* really?* Where are you getting this AI knowledge from?* Cause if you are correct you must have a helluva GO AI programmed somewhere.* Are you aware at all the ONLY "actually better than human" AI is for Chess.* A VERY constrained game as far as move and ability choice is concerned.* For any game involving concepts more difficult than projecting constrained move choices into the future, game AI's simply become a finite option expert system that one tries to make as robust as possible.
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i don't even know what "actually better than human" means? Does that mean AI is better than human on average? or always? better than all humans or better than most? Using such a fuzzy definition makes it very hard to argue. Chess was for many years a proof of human superior intelligence over computers, that is why AI research pushed in development of AI chess player. However chess is far from ONLY field where AI is succesfull. AI has proven itself on many fields as superior than human and not just in finitive space.
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On the July 4 weekend of 1981, while many Americans were preoccupied with barbecues or fireworks displays, players of an immensely complex, futuristic war game called Traveller gathered in San Mateo, California, to pick a national champion. Guided by hundreds of pages of design rules and equipment specifications, players calculate how to build a fleet of ships that will defeat all enemies without exceeding an imaginary defense budget of one trillion credits.
To design just one vessel, some fifty factors must be taken into account: how thick to make the armor, how much fuel to carry, what type of weapons, engines, and computer guidance system to use. Each decision is a tradeoff: a powerful engine will make a ship faster, but it might require carrying more fuel; increased armor provides protection but adds weight and reduces maneuverability.
Since a fleet may have as many as 100 ships?exactly how many is one more question to decide?the number of ways that variables can be juxtaposed is overwhelming, even for a digital computer. Mechanically generating and testing every possible fleet configuration might, of course, eventually produce a winner, but most of the computer?s time would be spent blindly considering designs that are nonsense. Exploring Traveller?s vast "search space," as mathematicians call it, require the ability to learn from experience, developing heuristics?rules of thumb?about which paths are most likely to yield reasonable solutions.
In 1981, Eurisko, a computer program that arguably displays the rudiments of such skills, easily won the Traveller tournament, becoming the top-ranked player in the United States and an honorary Admiral in the Traveller navy. Eurisko had designed its fleet according to principles it discovered itself?with some help from its inventor, Douglas B. Lenat, an assistant professor in Stanford University?s artificial-intelligence program.
"I never did actually play Traveller by hand," Lenat said, three years later. "I don?t think I even watched anybody play it. I simply talked to people about it and then had the program go off and design a fleet?When I went into the tournament that was the first time that I had ever played the game."
Eurisko's fleet was so obviously superior to those of its human opponents that most of them surrendered after the first few minutes of battle; one resigned without firing a shot.
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Afterall i can design an AI for tic-tac-toe that will never lose or make a mistake (which humans do) and so can claim it to be superior to any human.
But all that has very little to do GAME AI. I am full aware of problems of game AI.
What are the problems of game AI?
PROBLEM NO. 1: No matter what game players say they want, what they really want is to WIN. Off course they don't want the opponent to just roll over - no they want a glorious battle in which they have to use all their ("superior") brains, knowledge and experience. And they want to win... There is no fun in losing, especially against a computer. This demands put AI on the losing side from a get-go. It also creates bunch of subproblems:
- SCALABILITY - everybody wants to win from newbs to pros, to make a system scalable, it's better if it's simple, using things like state-finitive machines and weighted decision rules.
- NO RISK - game AI has to put good fight ALWAYS, therefore he can't engage in high risk tactics (tactics where they either win or lose badly - both unpopular results from players point of view).
- IMPROVEMENT - a player wants a sense of improvement, the longer he plays a game the more superior he expects to be. He doesn't want AI that will develope and improve at the same rate as he is. He doesn't want an ever challanging game - he expects that at some point he will "master" the game.
OTHER PROBLEMS:
- playing field is not even from the start (eg. in RTS AI can order 100 troops in a fraction of a second, while human has to deal with user interface)
- time - not just CPU time (which AI has to share with graphics, UI...) but thinking time: computer player is expected to think fast - in RT game that is a given but also in turn based games: AI taking 1/10th of time human takes for himself will annoy players.
In general players don't want intelligent opponent - they want an illusion of compotent enemy. Afterall CS bots could headshot you everytime they see you but who would to play against them?
In many games AI has to be dumbed down to make the game even playable.
This all leads to simple systems that are based on untested heuristics, cheats and stacking odds against players, which are easier to develope and better suit the purpose.
IN CONCLUSION:
To address your original question: NO, i don't have "helluva GO AI programmed somewhere", but that has nothing to do AI "having hard time keeping up", it has everything to do with it being a GAME AI and it's natural limitations as well as it's goals.
Knowing all this, i rarely knock on game AI (which is getting better all the time), i just wish game developers would make more effort on strategic part of AI (not just tactical and pathfinding), instead of saying it's next to imposible and just do some simplistic model that can be figured out and countered in about 15min of gameplay.
p.s. i apologize for any spelling errors.