madhatter256 has a specific desire---to know how to program AI.

There''s no reason that his age should prevent him from turning his desire into the goal "I intend to learn how to program AI."

You will have to start slow, since to know how to program AI---anything really---you have to practice and learn.

Be sufficiently motivated to spend the time learning and practicing, and one day you will know how to program AI! Success will be your reward for hard work.


Graham Rhodes
Senior Scientist
Applied Research Associates, Inc.

Somehow, I don''t think he is ever going to read all these replies :p

Check out http://www.ai-depot.com . They''ve got some bang-up AI tutorials you might be intreasted in.

Johnny Watson
jwatson@dogmail.org
JohnnyBlaze on #gamedev & #flipcode

AI:

Its evil! Evil I tell you!

Artificial intelligence is the devil... resist intelligent NPC''s

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you..."~Friedrich Nietzsche

That was me, Drizzt DoUrden, about evil AI before. Having some username problems.

Artificial intelligence is the devil... resist intelligent NPC''s

"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster... when you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you..."~Friedrich Nietzsche

first, make sure you know at least one programming lauguage well, preferably an object oriented language. Then think what AI means to you, and what you want to achieve with it. usually, the AI algorithm is just an adaptive optimization algorithm. Is this what you want? Or are you interested in Intelligence part. Currently, there are nothing out there that can honestly be called "artificial intelligence". But many are thinking about it. There are many books and articles that discuss this topic. They usually tend to be more philosophical than scientific, although many raise the relationship of quantum mechanics with intelligence and consciousness. Some have argued that there are no such thing as consciousness and intelligence, that they are simply a consequence of the complexity of our brain, which may lead us back to quantum mechanics. This does seem plausible and may explain the lack of intelligence among species with less complex brains. This also may explain evidence of group intelligence displayed by ant colonies, where each ant may lack sufficient knowledge, but as group they perform amazing things. In any case, its an interesting topic and I hope you will have load of fun thinking about it.

Kinda off-topic I know but I''ll post it NEway, Don''t let your age worry you. As long as you have enough spare time and maybe help from someone more advanced than you (like the people on this forum).
The main problem (which I''m dealing with now) is being a couple of years behind the most basic of topics. I''m making an entry for nehe''s latest contest and while doing so I''ve had to learn LOTS of advanced maths. When you''re just learning trig then going onto 3d math with matrices and vectors just blows your head.
As long as you really want to then you''ll be fine. Just bear with it and eventually you''ll get it

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Baldur K

pfft. I''m 17 and am developing for Microsoft as well as own a business and am in the process of developing a rather sweet game engine. Don''t bang on him because of his age. I''ve found that most *older* people are too used to old styles and are too anal to learn newer techniques. Some of the worlds best game developers started when they were very young. How old was the guy that programmed the Build engine for Duke3d?? 13? 14? I think bashing someone because of their age is very immature. Anyways, as for AI. AI is evil But worth learning if your up for it. I suggest going to the book store and picking up a few books there.


-Salec

So I may get shot for this but is AI just IF THEN ELSE?

AI is whatever you want it to be. Remember its *artificial* intelligence so aslong as it looks like its intelligent and does what you want then its ok.