quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
I''m sorry, but when the hell did they actually start having
dedicated ai programmers on projects, much less two of them.

I don''t know who the "they" are that you are refering to, but I''ve
been working as a "dedicated ai programmer" on projects with computer
game developers since early 1995. I also know of a number of other
"dedicated ai programmers" who are working on other game projects,
and in some cases there are more than one "ai programmer" on the
project. On my current project, there are 2.

Eric

Well Geta, as much as everyone complains about the state of ai
in games then obviously

1)you''re not as dedicated as you think

or

2)you guys suck.

Take your pick and since you''re taking your pick if you''re
offended, pick the other one and don''t bother flaming back.
Also, don''t flame, this was a conditional statement that
depends on the the first two lines, attack those first two
lines and the whole argument falls apart without so much as
a match. That''s what arguing is supposed to be like. I say
we bring back civility to the forums.
(dead silence)
A voice from the throng, "That''s fine, just let me flame
this guy one more time.."

I''ve always looked at "honest AI", and "cheating AI" this way.

Take Starcraft for example, it has a "cheating AI" when you play the computer. A regular player is limited by fog of war, and usually doesn''t know where all the minerals are, and is forced to scout the map and guess his opponents actions. The computer AI, on the hand, is omniscient to eveything in the game world. The AI knows exactly where you are and what you have built even though they haven''t scouted / seen you yet. The computer can''t build anything / get more resources than you though.

An "honest AI" would be forcing the computer to scout the map before they know where things are, and having to guess about your location and actions etc, just like an opposing human player would have to do. This approach is a lot harder to program than the first, which is why it''s usually not done. It would be very interesting to have starcraft programmed this way though, although it would be hard to regulate the difficulty.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Gaiiden is right about current ai not bein complex but
he is wrong about the intelligence or smartness of it. Again,
smartness really isn't needed since MOST ENEMIES ARE JUST
SPRITES ANYWAYS AND CAN'T DO MUCH OF ANYTHING, EVEN PLAYERS
HAVE A LIMITED AMOUNT ACTIONS. You would expect an enemy to
shoot at you if it get's close enough and very simple FSM work
wonders on doing that.

I am not wrong. The fact that a computer opponent is able to shoot at you and react to being attacked (amongst other things) conveys a level of intelligence. AI in games is designer to look smart while the underlying mechanics are very simple. There have been companies who have held sessions with their testers and asked them to determine if they were playing a bot or a real player. Many times they think it's a human when it's a computer-controlled bot. These bots are usually nothing more than some sort of state-machine, but they "appear" to be intelligent in their actions.

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Well Geta, as much as everyone complains about the state of ai
in games then obviously

1)you're not as dedicated as you think

or

2)you guys suck.

I don't know where this is coming from, because geta is correct, there is such a thing as a dedicated AI programmer on game projects in the industry today. Ever since the GPU came out and freed up extra clock cycles that had until then been used for graphics, developers have started allocating those cycles to AI. The focus on AI is definetly picking up and plenty of companies are currently employing or looking to employ dedicated AI programmers.

And I really hope everyone understands that the topic originally cast is not the one being discussed, just to make sure there are no misconceptions.

_________________________________________________________________

Drew Sikora
A.K.A. Gaiiden

ICQ #: 70449988
AOLIM: DarkPylat

Blade Edge Software
Staff Member, GDNet
Public Relations, Game Institute

3-time Contributing author, Game Design Methods , Charles River Media (coming GDC 2002)
Online column - Design Corner at Pixelate

NJ IGDA Chapter - NJ developers unite!! [Chapter Home | Chapter Forum]

quote: And I really hope everyone understands that the topic originally cast is not the one being discussed, just to make sure there are no misconceptions.

Let me rephrase my original post. There appears to be no well-defined difference between a "cheating" AI and an "honest" AI. Why can''t a state-machine be ''intelligent''? How complex does something have to be before one calls it ''honestly'' intelligent?

quote: Original post by Anonymous Poster
Well Geta, as much as everyone complains about the state of ai
in games then obviously

1)you''re not as dedicated as you think

Obviously, the use of the word "dedicated" carries additional meanings
than that of "being solely assigned".

quote:

2)you guys suck.

Take your pick and since you''re taking your pick if you''re
offended, pick the other one and don''t bother flaming back.
Also, don''t flame, this was a conditional statement that
depends on the the first two lines, attack those first two
lines and the whole argument falls apart without so much as
a match. That''s what arguing is supposed to be like. I say
we bring back civility to the forums.
(dead silence)
A voice from the throng, "That''s fine, just let me flame
this guy one more time.."

And telling people "you guys suck" is your way of bringing civility
to the forums? Hiding in anonymity and insulting people certainly
don''t make a case for you.

Please go away troll. We don''t need your type of posting here.

Man, I knew this would lead to flames and arguments. Why don''t you guys stop fighting and answer his frickin question.

So, if I summarise from you guys'' postings, the definition of Cheating AI and Honest AI will be:

Cheating AI -- An approach to Game AI that uses and takes benefits from confidential world information in order to create the illusion of intelligence.

Honest AI -- An approach to Game AI that uses only pure and legal information, which is also valid to the human player.

But again, back to the meaning of "cheating", which argument should I base on?

"literal cheating": stronger units, smaller fog of war, etc.

or

"design cheating": use simple AI to simulate complex actions (FSM, FuSM, etc.)

I''m kinda confused, whether should I write using quotes ("cheating" AI and "honest" AI) or simply Cheating AI and Honest AI?

Two quick points.

I think of intelligence as a black box, I don''t care what''s inside . (Intelligent Agents Essay)

Cheating when designing game agents involves making them omniscient... it''s all about subjective perception and sensorial honesty.

Alex


Artificial Intelligence Depot - Maybe it''s not all about graphics...